June Wine of the Month Club 2022

“Austria is a beautiful European country famous for its immense history, rich culture and stunning geography that enchants locals and tourists worldwide. Though many vino newbies don’t think of Austria as a bountiful wine-producing country, this could not be further from the truth. Like the rest of its unique culture, Austrian wine has ancient roots extending throughout the country.  In 700 BC The Celts were already farming the native vines in a somewhat simple form of viticulture.  This Celtic influence was monumental, but it would take a few centuries for winemaking to truly take off in the region. Around 1 BC, modern-day Austria was under Roman control, and with that came the systemized and massively scaled style of Roman wine production. For the next few centuries, the region became a home for wine in Central Europe.

     ​​Following the demise of the Roman empire, the wine industry in Austria experienced a great deal of change. Under new leaders, vineyards were reconstructed and new grapes rose in popularity. Over the following centuries, these changes led to a boom of Austrian wine that transformed Vienna into a world wine center in the 14th century. However, in the 19th century Austria was bombarded by hazardous vineyard mildew and the infamous wave of phylloxera, an insect that feeds on grapevines, many vineyards disappeared by 1872. These setbacks dealt a significant blow to wine in Austria, and it would take decades to recover.

     The boom of wine production in the early 20th century led to the industrialization of Austrian wine, supposed drops in quality and myriad controversies. Chief among these was the “antifreeze scandal” in the 1980s, in which some winemakers in Austria added diethylene glycol, a chemical found in antifreeze, to wines for enhanced sweetness and body. This controversy harmed the reputation of Austrian wine for a period, but it also led to favorable, sweeping regulations that initiated a national focus on quality over quantity at vineyards.  These changes spurred the creation of the Austrian appellation system, the DAC, and helped Austria regain its place as one of the world’s top 20 wine-producing countries in recent years.” - Wine Insider

     Just a few miles west of the great shallow lake called the Neusiedlersee (literally, “the new settler lake”) is the town of St. Margarethen and the winery Rosi Schuster. Their nine hectares of vines spread themselves out among the finest and oldest vineyards in the communities of St Margarethen and Zagersdorf. Certified organic, they produce some of the most distinctive and expressive wines in Austria. Since 2015, they’ve made Rosi Schuster Aus Den Dorfern, a Gruner Veltliner with a healthy shot of Gemischter Satz, meaning more than a dozen of esoteric varieties, some of which we had never before heard of.  “Aus Den Dorfen” means “from the villages”, specifically estate holdings in Sankt Margarethen, Rust and Zagersdorf. The Aus Den Dorfen wines are eminently and immediately drinkable wines from a fantastic young winemaker.

     At Weingut Michael Auer, they describe the ideal typical wine from Carnuntum as such; "It has to be authentic, reflect the characteristics of the grape variety and the region, have backbone, but also drinkability - coherent, balanced, harmonious.”  When working in the vineyard and in the wine cellar, Michael Auer follows equally clear lines: his wines are created in harmony with nature, but not by chance. The harvest is entirely handpicked. In the cellar, the motto is "controlled idleness": The wines are left on the skins for a maximum of 20 days. For several years, the vintner has been using whole cluster fermentation, since the intercellular process makes the wines particularly soft and harmonious. Michael Auer is no longer a young vintner who experiments a lot or who has to find his way. He knows exactly what he wants and how to reach his goals. It is exactly this vision and consistency that can be felt and tasted in his wines.

Cheers,

The PlumpJack Wine Team