A young name for an old wine country
The Traisental lies on the same side of the Danube as Mautern, a little further east: a broad river valley between the Danube and St. Pölten, with towns such as Traismauer and Herzogenburg. Opposite, across the Danube, lie Krems, parts of the Kremstal and the Wagram.
The Traisental has only existed as a wine region in its own right since the 1995 wine law amendment; before that it belonged to the Donauland area. Since the 2006 vintage, regionally typical Grüner Veltliner and Riesling may be labelled Traisental DAC. According to Austrian Wine, the area has 861 hectares of vineyards, making it one of the smallest in the country.
Bronze Age graves and grape seeds
The largest Bronze Age burial grounds found so far in Central Europe were discovered in the Traisental, at Franzhausen near Nußdorf ob der Traisen. The Franzhausen I cemetery was fully excavated and contains 727 graves, most of them from the Early Bronze Age.
According to Weinland Traisental, remains of the wild vine were found as a grave good in one of these graves, and Austrian Wine speaks of grape seeds from the Early Bronze Age. They are among the oldest evidence of the vine in Austria. They are not proof of winegrowing, but they show how early the vine was at home here. The prehistory museum in Nußdorf ob der Traisen shows some of the finds from the cemeteries.
A situla and the Romans
The Kuffern situla, a bronze bucket found in the municipality of Statzendorf, dates from around 450 BC and shows a drinking scene. The original is now in the Natural History Museum in Vienna. Weinland Traisental sees it as a sign that drinking together played a role here for a long time.
In Roman times, Traismauer was an important place on the Danube Limes, and its fort remained garrisoned into the 5th century. According to Weinland Traisental, the Romans also brought new winegrowing techniques to the valley.
Salzburg, Passau and the Augustinian canons
According to Weinland Traisental, the Traisental belonged to the mission territory of the diocese of Salzburg in the 8th century, and vineyards around Traismauer, Wagram ob der Traisen and Oberwölbling were recorded early on.
On 18 August 1112, Bishop Ulrich of Passau founded a house of Augustinian canons in what was then the area where the Traisen flows into the Danube. In 1244, because of the constant risk of flooding and the unhealthy marshy climate, it was moved to Herzogenburg, where it still stands today.
According to the Herzogenburg abbey winery, the abbey acquired farms and vineyards in Wielandsthal in the 14th and 15th centuries. They were usually worked by tenants who gave a third of the yield to the abbey. The baroque cellar in Wielandsthal goes back to Jakob Prandtauer, and the small cellar house above it to Joseph Munggenast.
Crises, recovery and cellar lanes
According to Weinland Traisental, winegrowing remained an important part of life in the valley over the centuries, though not without setbacks. Failed harvests, export bans and rising prices at times caused production to fall, and after the Thirty Years' War the vineyards grew again.
Many of the Kellergassen, the cellar lanes that still shape the Traisental today, were built in the 18th and 19th centuries. Particularly well known are the Ahrenberg and Eichberg cellar lanes between Sitzenberg-Reidling and Traismauer. With well over a hundred cellars, they are among the longest cellar lanes in Lower Austria.
Why wine grows here: limestone
According to Austrian Wine, the great majority of Traisental vineyards stand on loess. The most striking geological element, however, is coarse calcareous-dolomitic gravel that the ancestral Traisen brought down from the rising Limestone Alps about 16 million years ago, most of it now cemented into conglomerate. Together with calcareous sands, it forms the subsoil of about a fifth of the vineyards.
According to Weinland Traisental, the valley floor is given over to arable farming and orchards, above all apples. The vines grow on the slopes rising west towards the Dunkelsteiner Wald and east towards the Venusberg. Near Nußdorf the vineyards sit on broad embankment terraces, which become much narrower further south near Reichersdorf, Getzersdorf and Inzersdorf. Weinland Traisental credits the calcareous soils with making the wines develop more slowly but giving them particular longevity.
Why wine grows here: climate
Between the Danube and the Alpine foothills, opposing influences meet. Cool air from the mountains and northerly winds bring fresh nights, while warm currents from the Pannonian plain warm the days. According to Weinland Traisental, the cool south-westerly wind accounts for about 60 per cent of measured wind hours.
According to Weinland Traisental, the vineyards lie between 150 and 450 metres above sea level, often on small terraces. In the warmer north near the Danube the harvest comes earlier, while in the cooler south the grapes ripen for longer.
What you can still see today
The Traisental is the opposite of a postcard region, and that is exactly what makes it interesting. Its history does not sit on steep terraces above a famous river, but in cellar lanes and museum display cases.
Our tip: combine the prehistory museum in Nußdorf ob der Traisen with a walk through a cellar lane and try a Traisental Grüner Veltliner from limestone. You rarely find this much wine history in such a small space.