Austria

One of the best places to start a study of German-speaking wines isn’t Germany: it’s Austria.

Why? Because Austria’s compact size makes it easy to get a handle on geography (ski in the west, grow wine in the east, as the Austrians themselves say) and varieties (come for the Grüner Veltliner, stay for the Blaufränkisch). Although Austria’s wine history runs deep, tradition and a flair for elegance rub shoulders with dynamic experimentation and impressive stylistic diversity.

Austria

Austria Is the Antidote to Wine Doomerism
ByValerie Kathawala June 1, 2026June 5, 2026

The focus and energy of Austria's biennial wine trade fair VieVinum puts the spotlight on a country that is doing wine right.

Membership Required
You must be a member to access this content.
View Membership Levels
Already a member? Log in here

Read more or sign in Austria Is the Antidote to Wine Doomerism
Austria · Germany · Italy

Flavescence dorée: A Viticultural Murder Mystery
ByNils Kevin Puls December 16, 2025

In slanting early morning light, a shadow crosses a vineyard. The figure moves row by row, ripping out vines and casting them onto a large, burning pyre. The blaze stretches to greet the sun as it rises above a mountainous horizon. There is fire from all points of the compass. Death is in the air. The culprit is a phytoplasm fatal to Vinifera vines. Its spread is aided by the American grapevine leafhopper (Scaphoideus titanus), a dwarf cicada native to North America. As it feasts on the vines, it transmits the pathogen of what is known in German as Goldgelbe…...

Membership Required
You must be a member to access this content.
View Membership Levels
Already a member? Log in here

Read more or sign in Flavescence dorée: A Viticultural Murder Mystery
Austria

Four Off-Trail Austrian Wines to Discover
BySedale McCall July 14, 2025December 16, 2025

For most wine drinkers, Riesling and Grüner Veltliner are gateways to Austrian wine. But with Austria’s wide range of climates and geography, this tiny country offers surprising varietal diversity. Forty-two different wine grapes are native or traditional, with expressions ranging from light and vibrant to rich and baroque. Topping the list are varieties with long histories in Austria: the red grapes Blaufränkisch and Zweigelt, the whites Chardonnay (known in Austria as Morillon) and Sauvignon Blanc. Then there are the 22 grapes on the back half of the list, each accounting for less than 1% of total plantings. All these varieties…...

Membership Required
You must be a member to access this content.
View Membership Levels
Already a member? Log in here

Read more or sign in Four Off-Trail Austrian Wines to Discover
Austria · Wachau

Eat + TRINK: For the Love of Marillenfleck
ByMartin Sorge July 1, 2025December 16, 2025

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…...

Membership Required
You must be a member to access this content.
View Membership Levels
Already a member? Log in here

Read more or sign in Eat + TRINK: For the Love of Marillenfleck
Austria · Burgenland

Burgenland Orange: A New Shade for the DAC?
BySimon J. Woolf May 26, 2025November 1, 2025

When Italy’s Collio DOC voted in December 2024 to include orange wines in their disciplinare, the news barely caused a ripple in the grand lake that is global wine. Meanwhile, I was in a state of mild shock. One of Italy’s most conservative appellations had just voted to allow orange wines to bear its hallowed classification. The decision clearly made sense: Collio is ground zero when it comes to orange wine. It was here, after all, that seminal growers like Gravner and Radikon redefined skin-fermented white wines in the late 1990s. Once considered heretics, their approach is now established worldwide…....

Membership Required
You must be a member to access this content.
View Membership Levels
Already a member? Log in here

Read more or sign in Burgenland Orange: A New Shade for the DAC?
Austria · Germany

Where to Drink German and Austrian Wine in NYC
ByValerie Kathawala January 12, 2025January 9, 2026

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…...

Membership Required
You must be a member to access this content.
View Membership Levels
Already a member? Log in here

Read more or sign in Where to Drink German and Austrian Wine in NYC
Austria

Seven at One Sip: a Heiligenstein Journey
ByHåvard Flatland December 4, 2024December 16, 2025

Is there a way to understand a vineyard? Wines from certain sites evoke the urge to uncover more about the place and the reason the wines taste the way they do. These are wines that, whatever the vintage or producer, manage to stay true to some sensory basics. Riesling might be the medium, but the message is origin. Geography and geology are where the notion of terroir begins. To understand a vineyard is to listen to what place tells us through location, aspect, and soil. Zöbinger Heiligenstein in Kamptal, Austria has plenty to say. The brave little vineyard: Heiligenstein’s storied…...

Membership Required
You must be a member to access this content.
View Membership Levels
Already a member? Log in here

Read more or sign in Seven at One Sip: a Heiligenstein Journey
Austria

Karakterre Driven
ByMałgorzata Partyka September 9, 2024September 15, 2024

The festival where character meets connection over a glass of wine

Membership Required
You must be a member to access this content.
View Membership Levels
Already a member? Log in here

Read more or sign in Karakterre Driven
Austria · Hungary

Sopron Is the Hungarian City Straddling Vines and Vision
BySue Tolson April 10, 2024January 9, 2026

Reviving winemaking traditions on the old frontier between East and West from those with roots in both.

Membership Required
You must be a member to access this content.
View Membership Levels
Already a member? Log in here

Read more or sign in Sopron Is the Hungarian City Straddling Vines and Vision
Austria

What’s the Point of Fine Wine, Afterall?
ByPaula Redes Sidore January 23, 2024January 5, 2026

Channeling literary theory in order to propose a new threshold test for fine wine.

Membership Required
You must be a member to access this content.
View Membership Levels
Already a member? Log in here

Read more or sign in What’s the Point of Fine Wine, Afterall?
Austria

Biodynamics’ Blind Spot
ByLauren Johnson-Wünscher January 23, 2024January 5, 2026

An essay reconciling the realpolitik of Rudolf Steiner today.

Membership Required
You must be a member to access this content.
View Membership Levels
Already a member? Log in here

Read more or sign in Biodynamics’ Blind Spot
Austria · Styria

Steiermark: Two Hearts, One Soul
ByNils Kevin Puls January 23, 2024January 5, 2026

"It’s not about Südsteiermark or Untersteiermark. It’s about wine.”

Membership Required
You must be a member to access this content.
View Membership Levels
Already a member? Log in here

Read more or sign in Steiermark: Two Hearts, One Soul
Austria · Hungary

Reimagining Pannonia
ByRainer Schäfer October 18, 2023January 9, 2026

A map of vanished Pannonian wine culture is beginning to reemerge with regional heroes such as Roland Velich and Tamás Kis leading the way.

Membership Required
You must be a member to access this content.
View Membership Levels
Already a member? Log in here

Read more or sign in Reimagining Pannonia
Carnuntum · Austria

Why Dorli Muhr Bet It All on Blaufränkisch
ByValerie Kathawala October 18, 2023January 5, 2026

Austrian wine splashed back into the headlines recently when four of its wineries were chosen by a leading U.S. wine publication for inclusion in their “Top 100” worldwide. Notably, three of the four made their names with red wines. What’s more — in a first for Austria — one is a woman. The woman in question, Dorli Muhr, has been a powerful catalyst for the rise of Austrian wine over the past three decades. But gaining international recognition for her own wines, particularly her strikingly finessed Blaufränkisch from a vineyard she was the first to champion, has been a long…...

Membership Required
You must be a member to access this content.
View Membership Levels
Already a member? Log in here

Read more or sign in Why Dorli Muhr Bet It All on Blaufränkisch
Austria

Cans with a Plan
ByValerie Kathawala May 31, 2023January 5, 2026

Djuce first entered my periphery late last year at the New York City iteration of Karakterre’s natural wine fair. Amid a cheerful invasion of producers from what has winningly been dubbed “the Austro-Hipsterian Empire,” I narrowed my focus to taste at some touchstones of Austrian natural wine — Judith Beck, Zillinger, Heinrich, Meinklang, Nittnaus, Weninger. Hurrying between offerings of electric-amped Grüner Veltliner and ethereal Blaufränkisch, I brushed by a small table stacked with slim, colorful cans and a paper sign that read “Djuce.” I paused just long enough to register an internal eye roll at what I assumed was the bro-culture spelling and reflexive ecoism of yet…...

Membership Required
You must be a member to access this content.
View Membership Levels
Already a member? Log in here

Read more or sign in Cans with a Plan
Austria

Is It Time for Screwcaps on Fine Wine?
ByNils Kevin Puls May 31, 2023January 5, 2026

Screwcaps for fine wine are making a comeback. Do these cheap and cheerful closures have what it takes for the long run?

Membership Required
You must be a member to access this content.
View Membership Levels
Already a member? Log in here

Read more or sign in Is It Time for Screwcaps on Fine Wine?
Austria · Thermenregion

Discovering Austria’s Thermenregion
ByNils Kevin Puls February 15, 2023January 5, 2026

To mark a recent milestone anniversary, Austria’s association of traditional wine estates (ÖTW) invited into its fold a region that is in many regards the epitome of Herkunft, or origins. The Thermenregion, often held up as Austria’s Burgundy, brings a suitably deep and glorious wine tradition. The ÖTW’s intake process for the Thermenregion is in the final stages of fine-tuning, reports chairman Michael Moosbrugger. Most likely, white wines from Erste Lage, or premier cru, sites from the 2022 vintage will be the first to be classified, followed by the reds. “In joining the ÖTW, it was crucial that the region’s…...

Membership Required
You must be a member to access this content.
View Membership Levels
Already a member? Log in here

Read more or sign in Discovering Austria’s Thermenregion
Austria

Grüner Veltliner for Later
ByJordan Michelman February 15, 2023January 5, 2026

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,…...

Membership Required
You must be a member to access this content.
View Membership Levels
Already a member? Log in here

Read more or sign in Grüner Veltliner for Later