Calling from the expansive, flat landscape that forms the western edge of the Pannonian Puszta steppe flatlands, Erich Stekovics is a lone voice in the tomato world. Where others seek high yield and hardy reliability, Stekovics makes the case for flavor and site. He and his wife Priska belong to the tiny share of Austrian farmers cultivating tomatoes without the cover of glass or foil, and without irrigation. At the eponymous estate in Frauenkirchen, the pair cultivate and safeguard several thousand varieties in the open, and in addition to chili peppers, onions, and garlic, their fields are surrounded by vines….
Ursula Heinzelmann is an independent scholar and food historian born, bred and based in Berlin, Germany. A trained chef, sommelier and ex-restaurateur, she works as a freelance wine and food writer, specializing in cheese. She has published a number of cookbooks, a food history of Germany, Beyond Bratwurst, as well as several books on cheese, and acted as area editor for the Oxford Companion to Cheese. She is the trustee director of the Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery as well as curator of the Cheese Berlin festival.
The Wachau stands tall as one of Austria’s most storied wine regions. Terraced vineyards of Grüner Veltliner, Riesling, and other varieties line the bend of the mighty Danube. But grapes aren’t the only iconic fruit here. As a nerdy baker and wine nerd, I am intrigued by why particular grape or fruit varieties thrive in specific areas and what makes that terroir so special. I swear by Montmorency tart cherries from Northern Michigan just as I revere Grüner Veltliner from the Wachau. When I discovered that the Wachau is also known as a source of my second-favorite fruit to bake…...
Trink Magazine | Austria's winegrowing region of Carnuntum has seemingly been there from the beginning with an identity forever in flux. Paula Redes Sidore explores how growers are redefining what regionality means, together.
Whether you’re dropping into town for the bacchanalia that is Rieslingfeier or you’re a native New Yorker curious to get a taste of the latest and greatest in German and Austrian wines, here’s your hit list of bars and restaurants that make NYC the country’s best (if priciest) city to drink auf Deutsch. Updated November 2025 to remove Koloman, which has closed. G = German focus A = Austrian focus Noreetuh (G) Manager and co-owner Jin Ahn has turned this decade-old Lower East Side Hawaiian spot into the city’s ultimate insider Riesling hangout. Ahn’s exceptionally well-informed list is divided into Rieslings…...
The Wine Friend is a figure of great importance in the life of a wine drinker. They can take the form a kind benefactor, perhaps older, perhaps wiser, one whose personal cellar heaves with decades of collected knowledge and interest, and whose guileless goal is to share these experiences with others as a form of vinous karmic pleasure. I count myself as lucky to have a few such friends, which is how I found myself — on one of those chilly, foggy autumn San Francisco evenings — drinking a very smart coterie of wines among a small group of pals,…...
For a Jewish baby boomer like me, the Holocaust was always part of my DNA. Yet, I was not the child of survivors. My Polish grandparents were safely in the United States by the 1920s. The family they left behind were mostly killed. In yeshiva, where I spent a dozen years splitting my curriculum between religious and secular studies, we were frequently subjected to footage of emaciated bodies, piled up for burning or disposal. Teachers didn’t hide the numbers tattooed on their arms. But the personal horror stories my cousins told of Polish concentration camps and ghettos were the images…...
