DAN WINE BLOG- MMMEMORIES!

Friday, June 23, 2023

?The other day I read on Europe’s excellent wine journal (see link below) that Austria’s magnificent Wachau wine region has been UNSECO World Heritage Site listed. Memories of my visit to Dom?ne Wachau in 2018, as part of my visit to Austrian wine’s premier exhibition, VieVinum, came flooding back.

?I have been a big fan of Austrian native variety wines since I first tasted them at a Winestate Magazine (now defunct) tasting. I have been fortuitous enough to visit Austria on two occasions, each of which endeared me more to the people and their magnificent wines.

?Austrian native grape varieties make sensational white wines mainly from Grüner Veltliner (Grüner) and delicious, succulent, lighter-style reds such as Zweigelt, Blaufr?nkisch and St Laurent. All of which are now made in Australia, mainly in the Adelaide Hills, where there are now over 40 Grüner growers. Hahndorf Hill Winery pioneered the variety in the Hills and specialise in Austrian native varieties, making some superb wines.

?Back to Austria in 2018, the day before VieVinum kicked off (in a magnificent palace), with nearly 1,500 wines on taste, there was a bus trip to Dom?ne Wachau, which is about an hour’s drive out of Vienna. It is an amazing co-operative, involving some two hundred and fifty local families who hold small plots of vineyard, so that all up the Dom?ne manages around four hundred hectares. This is about one-third of the total vineyard area of the Wachau region. They make 70 different wines, many of them either single vineyard or single zone wines from within the area.

?The visit was sensational! When we got there we tasted a number of their excellent white wines with Winery Director, Roman Horvath MW. The tasting was followed by a walk through their ancient underground cellars, which were dug out for the monks who owned the area back in 1717 (that’s 53 years before Captain Cook discovered Australia).

?In one part of the tunnel they had their “experimental” section where they are producing small batches of “Natural or Orange wines”. These wines are stored in a variety of containers – concrete eggs, clay amphora, a specially made granite tank holding over 1,000 litres as well as a marble vessel made from a boulder found nearby of “Wachau marble”.

?The tunnel experience was followed by a boat ride up the Danube in two open boats. When we had motored sufficiently upstream they turned off the engines, tied the two boats together and we drifted back down stream at a leisurely rate (the Danube flows at 18kph). We were then served the wines from several of their vineyards so that we could appreciate the wine as we drifted past the hilly topography of the vineyard from where the wine came. A unique and very pleasant experience on a sunny summer’s afternoon.

?After the brilliant boat ride we headed back to the ancient former cellar door (castle) which was also built by the monks and had a blind tasting of several flights. The culmination was the tasting of a stunningly brilliant, deeply golden and ubber complex sweet wine that was obviously very old. It turned out to be a 1971 Dom?ne Wachau Grüner Veltliner Sp?tlese Himmelstiege, which was absolutely divine at 47-years-old and at only 11.5% alcohol. It certainly proved the cellaring ability of Austria’s superstar, Grüner Veltliner.

?So in my mind the UNESCO listing of the Wachau region is well deserved and will hopefully assist in promoting the magnificent wines that the region produces. Hopefully with a heap of luck, I might be able to get back there one day to report on this magnificent and unique wine growing region.

?By the way, some of the Dom?ne Wachau wines are available here in Australia at Dan Murphy’s and are really worth trying.

?Well until next week, stay safe (205 Aussies died of COVID last week) and enjoy great wines especially #emergingvarieties. Cheers, Dan T.

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Article Link:?https://magazin.wein.plus

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