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Austria’s best single-vineyard wines: All about Ried


Simon J Woolf reports from the 2022 Austrian Single Vineyard Summit and shares his notes on the best of the “wines of place” he tasted


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ne of the most significant shifts in Austrian wine over the past few decades has been the move away from a “Germanic”-style wine classification—based around must weight and sweetness—to a pyramid system related to origin, just as with French AOCs or Italian DOCs. The formalization of the word Ried (meaning a specific vineyard site) in 2015 was a key stage in this process. Now the term can be used only with one of the 5,000 or so officially recognized single-vineyard sites in the country. Yes, that’s a big number, and it includes many obscure sites and monopoles that will be of limited interest to the consumer, in addition to heavy- hitters such as Heiligenstein in Kamptal or Achleiten in the Wachau. Choosing based on region, grape variety, or producer is still more important in such


92 | THE WORLD OF FINE WINE | ISSUE 79 | 2023


cases. But this is where the private winemaker’s associations such Vinea Wachau, the Österreichische Traditionsweingüter (ÖTW), or Steirische Terroir & Klassikweingüter (STK) come into the picture. Their work in cataloging and (in the case of the ÖTW and the STK) ranking their respective region’s vineyards is designed to help signpost the top sites to the consumer. Although Vinea Wachau is the largest of the three associations, the ÖTW is foremost in terms of promoting the single-vineyard concept. It’s for this reason that it organizes an annual tasting at Grafenegg Castle in Kamptal every September, allowing members of the press, sommeliers, wine importers, and distributors to taste the newly released vintages of its members’ single-vineyard wines. In recent years, this mammoth


and superbly organized event has grown even more, to include an increasing number of guest regions. The ÖTW itself currently covers the regions situated along the Danube (with the exception of the Wachau): Kremstal, Kamptal, Traisental, Wagram, Carnuntum, and Wien. Additionally, a small group of winemakers from Thermenregion joined in 2022, and a bigger group from the Weinviertel is projected to join in 2023. The Grafenegg tasting—now renamed the Austrian Single Vineyard Summit—includes what are perhaps the two most prestigious DACs in Burgenland—Leithaberg and Eisenberg (Südburgenland)—plus the members of the STK in Styria. A first for 2022 was an additional day organized by


Above: Grafenegg Castle in Kamptal, home to the ÖTW’s Austrian Single Vineyard Summit.


All photography by Anna Stoecher, courtesy of the ÖTW


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