Vievinum
What does Austria makes so interesting? Most of the people know this country from their skiing-trips, the film the Sound of Music, the former Empress Sissy and Sacher-torte. But that’s not all why Austria has become so well known and even famous for over the last few years. ‘If you would ask me I would immediately say especially for their wines.
This weekend (between the 2nd and 4th of June) I was invited for the biggest Austrian wine-event in Vienna: ‘Vievinum’. It took place
in one of the most beautiful buildings of the city ‘The Hofburg’ with more than 500 wine-producers. The Austrian Wine Marketing Board invited also around 830 people to come and visit Vievinum.
All the Vineyards in Austria are situated on the right part of the country. At that side Austria is surrounded by the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary and Slovenia. Of all these countries wineries were present to show their product. But I even saw wines and products from France, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Argentina, Peru, New Zealand, Brazil and America. The wines I tasted from the Czech Republic and from Serbia weren’t very bad at all.
I liked the honesty of the winemaker from the Czech Republic. He said that perhaps in twenty years his country is able to produce some good quality wines. You can taste that he is on the right track with his wines and that he is a very serious winemaker www.artevini.cz. Very disappointing were the sparkling wines from Russia. Didn’t they learn anything from the past? In Slovenia winemakers are more than capable to produce quality wines.
But of course I came here to taste Austrian wines. There are mainly four wine regions in Austria: Niederösterreich, Burgenland, Steiermark, and Wien. This year I was especially fond of the wines I tasted from Weingut Stift Klosterneuburg, Weingut Julius Klein and Weingut Sonnenmulde. They are very vivid with a lot of aroma and complexity.
During my stay I met in my hotel the best sommelier from Norway Francesco Azzarone. He is Italian and he found his wife in Norway. This year Francesco is going to compete in the European championship for sommeliers and next year in the world-championship. He has a great passion for wines from Austria.
On Saturday-evening the Austrian Wine Marketing Board organized a big wine-party in Kursalon Wien. If there’s one thing Austrians can do very well it is organizing a party and welcoming their guests. I must give the Austrian Wine Marketing Board a big compliment. Not only did I taste some great wines (f.e.15 and 16 years old wines that where exceptional), the food was also very good. And that for perhaps 500 people. The big animator and the boss of the Austrian Wine Marketing Board is Willy Klinger. Together with his staff he really knows how to make a success of the Austrian wines in general.
The only thing that can be improved for the next Vievinum is to have a better climate inside the building; it was sometimes simply too hot to taste the wines properly especially the red wines.
TO BE CONTINUED…