Austrian Wines
Wines of Austria: Go Beyond Austria’s Grüner Veltliner
How much do you know about natural wines of Austria?
Grüner Veltliner will always be a favourite from Austria, but the country also produces delicious blends that you’re going to want on your shelf. It’s about time you explored wines of Austria!
We decided to introduce you to a diverse and magnificent world of natural Austrian wines that go beyond Grüner Veltliner and help you explore grape blends such as Pinot Noir, Gelber Muskateller, Blaufränkisch, Zweigelt, Sauvignon Blancs and more. Join us in discovering premium artisan wines of Austria.
Fine wines from Austria: Meinklang biodynamic wines
Meinklang is a unique winery that is also a family-run mixed farm. Embedded in a steppe landscape, it lies on a geological line at the lowest point of Austria. These are placed on one side of the village are scanty soils, which were formerly used as pasture land and are well suited for viticulture and the reason they can produce stunning sustainable and natural wines.
They fertilise their vineyards with the compost that they produce themselves, using sheep, cow and horse manure, pomace, green waste and occasionally also rock dust. Robust and healthy wines can only grow in soil which is alive, producing completely individual wines full of character.
- The Meinklang Pinot Noir is juicy, vivid black cherry fruit appears on the nose of this wine, with a touch of tar and brooding elderberry. The palate brims with those appetising flavours and adds an edge of liquorice to the fruit. It’s fresh and vibrant, with a fine, taut, gossamer structure. A delicious Pinot Noir that’s as elegant as it is refreshing and honest.
- The Meinklang Frizzante Prosa is a brilliant Austrian sparkling wine with alluring summer berry flavours. This rosé wine is great by itself or well chilled with grilled salmon fillet and new potatoes. Sealed with a crown cap, and has been awarded Wine of the Week by the Independent. Discover more summerish wines! We have an amazing list of summer wines with more fine rose wines.
If you are keen to explore more excellent food and organic wine pairings, you’ll definitely love this list. Find out why sparkling wine goes perfectly with seafood or why spicy food makes a perfect fit with rose wine.
Biodynamic wines: Gut Oggau ‘family’ wines
The 14-hectare estate in the small Burgenland town of Oggau, which is run by Eduard Tscheppe and Stephanie Eselböck-Tscheppe, gives us exquisite biodynamic and organic wines that have quite a distinctive personality. The couple discovered the 17th-century winery in 2007 and painstakingly restored it, including its 200-year-old winepress. Today, they produce some of the most sought after sustainable wines of Austria – rare and limited.
The estate is Demeter classified which explains that they are using sustainable and biodynamic farming methods to produce their wine. Besides Gruner Veltliner, they use various varieties of organic grapes, including Bläufrankish, Zweigelt, Welschriesling and others.
This unique blend of grapes makes their wine exclusive while their approach to winemaking place Gut Oggau wines among the best artisan Austrian wines – natural, vegan wines, without sulphites, wine additives or sugar in wine.
Gut Oggau wines are sometimes described as ‘family’ wines. The story behind is an interesting one. When the couple started producing wines, they realised that each wine they were producing was ‘live’ and had a personality, and they decided to create ‘personalities’ for each of their special blend. Take Timotheus for example. Timotheus is super elegant, expressive ‘parent’ white wine, with an aromatic nose, ‘ageing effortlessly’, ‘open minded and always looking for new challenges’.
Exquisite Austrian white wine, a blend of Grüner Veltliner and Weissburgunder that will surprise you.
Finest blends of grape varieties: Andorfer wines from Kamptal
As I have recently found out, Austria has held many secrets from me. Kamptal gets its name from the river Kamp that flows directly through it and is home to Austria’s largest wine producing town, Langenlois. With an area of 3,907 hectares under vines, Kamptal is one of the most successful wine regions in Austria and boasts a great number of outstanding producers of top quality sustainable and natural wines.
Martin Arndorfer is a master blender, using multiple formats from steel tanks and stainless barriques to small oak, demi-muids and oval barrels. M & A Arndorfer came together after both Anna and Martin moved into a house together and now manage 16 ha in total. Not only did they unite their living spaces, but also their relationship, ideas, passion and knowledge for sustainable winemaking.
The Arndorfer watchword is an origin –
Origin for us though is restricted to the vineyard and the vines. The vines soak up the vigour of the soil and their surroundings and give the grapes their unmistakable character based on their origin. Even though we do not feel bound by tradition, we want to emphasise that the influence of the vineyard is crucial to our philosophy. We are convinced that it is impossible to make two wines exactly the same if the grapes come from different vineyards, regions or countries.
Andorfer wines from Austria respect the grape variety, terroir and tradition of Kamptal. If you’d just like to stick to Austrian Grüner – then the wines of Andorfer from Kamptal are the perfect example!
- Arndorfer Riesling, Handcrafted, 2017 is an exceptional Grüner that’s fermented on its own yeasts and aged in a variety of formats including stainless and wood. Slightly cloudy colour with a good concentrate of yellow plum and greengage with some spicy- leesy grip at the end of the buttery palate.
Before you go…
At Pull The Cork we make sure that our range of organic wines is the best on offer. We have tasted our selection of artisan red, rose and white wines and select only premium Austrian biodynamic wines from top producers from all over the world.
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