Wine notes from the Wachau
Knowledge
These are our explanatory notes on Wachau wine, its grape varieties and the neighbouring regions. Not an encyclopaedia talking down to you, but quiet orientation for what the wine and winery portraits will go into later.
Wachau terms
Three words appear on a great many Wachau labels. They do not tell you whether a wine is better or worse, but which way its style, its weight and the right moment to drink it are heading.
Grape variety
In the Wachau, Grüner Veltliner can come across as light, peppery, juicy or very serious. It comes down to site, soil, ripeness and the question of how much weight a wine should carry at all.
Grape variety
In the Wachau, Riesling often shows the cool, stony, precise side of the region. It can open quietly and then echo for a very long time.
Regions
Four wine regions lie close together and still tell different stories. Thinking of them side by side makes a lot of the wines from around here easier to understand.
Beyond the leading varieties
Grüner Veltliner and Riesling shape the picture. Alongside them are grapes that speak more quietly and can still say a great deal about the region and the people working in it.
Heuriger culture
A bunch of pine branches above the door means: open. Once you understand how a Heuriger works, the famously erratic opening hours start to make sense.
Origin
Spitz, Weißenkirchen, Dürnstein, Loiben and Mautern lie a few kilometres apart. In the glass they are often worlds apart, and there are reasons for that.