Austria 2013

I found growers in high sprits when discussing their 2013s. After extremely low yields in both 2012 and 2010 caused commercial difficulties for many estates,  the more bountiful 2013 also brought relief in terms of production levels. Given that 2014 will again be very short in volume and largely mediocre in quality, consumers should carefully scout the available selection of 2013s at their local wine shops in order to buy the best bottles while they are still to be found.

In spite of the euphoria about overall quality, total volume in 2013 was—at close to 330 million bottles—slightly below the long-term average, principally because Grüner Veltliner had problems with berry shatter during the flowering along large stretches of the Danube from the western end of the Wachau to Vienna. While total plantings of Austria’s icon grape have fallen from 20,000 hectares in the 1980s to only 13,500 today, they still represent 29% of the country’s vineyard area, so anything that affects this grape has a major impact on the total harvest.

In spite of the loss in volume, Grüner Veltliner remains Austria’s best-known variety. Riesling, albeit sometimes exceptional, is only available in small quantities, and Austria’s red wines remain curiously unknown. Blaufränkisch is a stunning grape that is more readily available but has little appeal for foreign consumers.

With only 44,000 hectares of vineyards, Austria will never impress with its size but it certainly does with its quality. Statistically it is not even in the top ten wine-producing countries worldwide, ranking only 18th in most charts. Nonetheless, that is higher than New Zealand, which enjoys wide popularity in the American market—and the wines of Austria are at least as good and have a much longer tradition.

An old Zweigelt vine

The 2013 Growing Season

While not extreme, the winter was colder than usual, with more than sufficient snow and rain to replenish the water levels in the soil, a fact that later proved to be beneficial. As spring also remained cool, both budding and flowering occurred significantly later than in other recent vintages, but not far behind the long-term statistical average. When the first heat wave came in June it was with an unending fury that lasted for three months, making 2013 one of the five hottest and driest summers on record. In fact, drought in August nearly shut down the vegetation process, but welcome rains in September brought not only relief but also cooler weather that continued until harvest ended, allowing the berries to ripen on a steady course without losing their acidity. As botrytis was rare, nearly all grapes were harvested in healthy condition.

The most commonly posed question to producers along the Danube in any given year is how Grüner Veltliner fared in comparison to Riesling. While I tasted many excellent Rieslings, I definitely believe that Grüner Veltliner had the upper hand in 2013. Not only did berry shatter reduce yields, it also led to the formation of tiny, very sweet but seedless grapes known in German as Jungfernbeeren, or maiden berries, which added complexity, balance and vibrancy to the final wines. Riesling, on the other hand, tested the nerves of the vintners at the end of the growing season. As the grapes only became truly physiologically ripe quite late, not everyone was willing to wait for just the right window to harvest and even those who did were confronted with high levels of acidity. While the best Rieslings have the depth and structure to age gracefully, they are often difficult to appreciate in their youth. Further, those producers who made good Rieslings generally bottled even slightly better Grüner Veltliners.

Vineyard Classification?

As in Germany, the Austrians are now beginning to classify their vineyards, but much still needs to be done. The use of individual ried names, as the Austrians call their sites, is vaguely organized but largely left to the individual producer. It is not quite as if they were allowed to put a name like Chambertin on the label merely because they thought it would boost sales, but the vineyards have generally not been so clearly delineated.

The Wachau prepared their original vineyard map in 1983, but it did not differentiate between what might be considered a grand cru site and what was merely an ordinary one. The Styrian Quality Alliance (STK) took that step in 2008, but as few of the leading producers share vineyards, they are essentially individual monopolies. There is little understanding at the consumer level as to what is the style of Zieregg, Nussberg or Kranachberg.

In 2010, another group of producers called the Traditionsweingüter, or Estates with Tradition, began to classify the sites along the central Danube, but their work is still incomplete and, like the attempts of the VDP in Germany, not in any sense legally approved or binding. Their logo with the sundial and compass is, however, a good indication of who are the better producers in their respective growing region and what are the best sites.

Unfortunately, the use of terms like Reserve can also still be confusing. In those regions that have introduced a DAC there is generally a Reserve category, but no producer is obliged to write Reserve on the label merely because his wine qualifies for the designation. Moreover, some say that there is no reason to add Reserve on the label of a wine that is classified as an Erste Lage. A consensus is building on what needs to be done, but we are still at least a few years from a true national solution.

In the accompanying tasting notes, I have tried to write Grosse Lage, Erste Lage or whatever else the producers might have on their labels that credibly hints at a future classification, but not every estate places the same emphasis on classification. Similarly, some write merely Riesling Heiligenstein and not Kammener Heiligenstein Riesling, in order to highlight only the site, but others write the full name. In almost all cases, I have tried to follow the individual estate’s own nomenclature if it makes sense.

How I Taste

Most of the wines included in this report were tasted over a fortnight’s excursion to Austria in early February. Those producers who I was not able to visit sent samples to my office along the Rhine. Thereafter, I retasted many of the better wines in my office in March so that I could compare them to one another and follow their evolution over a couple of days.

Wachau

For many consumers, this enclave on the Danube between Melk and Krems is the epicenter of Austria’s wine universe. There is no question about it being one of the most beautiful parts of the valley; it is also geographically, geologically and climatically awe-inspiring, offering the artists here a wide palette from which to choose. It was not so long ago, however, that the Wachau was also one of the poorest viticultural regions in Austria. Their good fortune was ambition, timing and just plain luck.

Today, though, that measure of serendipity may be coming back to haunt them. While other regions have begun to sketch classifications of their finest vineyard sites, producers in the Wachau remain resolute in their belief in sugar ripeness at harvest, using the designations Steinfeder, Federspiel and Smaragd much like the Kabinett, Spätlese and Auslese that they had previously used on labels. That is understandable from a financial point of view, because Federspiel and even more so Smaragd are extremely popular on the market in spite of their comparatively higher prices. At the same time it would certainly be helpful if consumers were easily able to differentiate between the dry wines from top hillside sites like Axpoint, Achleiten and Kellerberg on one hand and the blocks in the alluvial plain along the Danube with names like Frauenweingarten, Donaubreiten and Kirchenweg on the other. It would be even better if they used only those names on their labels that could pretend to be at least of premier cru status and then made only one wine from each site.

At the Smaragd level, a number of producers have begun to understand that the overblown style of wines made a generation ago may not be the future and they are beginning to reign in their alcohol levels and review their position on botrytis. While Peter Malberg is the true rebel, among the established producers Lucas Pichler from F.X. Pichler is also clearly moving in this direction: toward lighter, cleaner and purer expressions of each vineyard site. “The way we live and eat has changed,” he maintains. “Our wines must evolve as well.”