Austria’s great value reds | Financial Times

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When writing tasting notes on wines whose costs I do know, my apply is to append GV and even VGV to these I feel are good worth or excellent worth.

I used to be tasting a variety of Austrian wines the opposite day and located myself scattering GVs like confetti on the reds. Admittedly, many are listed by The Wine Society within the UK, which is notably non-grasping in its pricing coverage. However I’m not alone in considering Austria’s reds are underpriced typically.

Clemens Riedl runs a web based wine retailer in Austria, trinkreif.at, specialising in mature wonderful wines from everywhere in the world. “High Austrian purple wines are nonetheless very low-priced in contrast with their worldwide peer group,” he says.

“Additionally, the rise over time mirrored in secondary market costs is just too little. Good for the buyer, not for the service provider. Only a pity that Austrian shoppers are hardly keen to attend for the wine to mature and actually display its potential and complexity. That’s why we began some years in the past to spend money on the very best Austrian purple wines to be launched from our cellar at the least 5 years after launch from the wineries.

“With Blaufränkisch, now we have a unbelievable native grape selection on the subject of longevity . . . I’m certain it’s only a matter of time earlier than that is acknowledged extra broadly and mirrored within the costs.”

Solely a handful of Austrian reds promote for greater than €100 a bottle in Austria they usually are typically nearer to the concentrated, oaky fashion of reds admired by Austrians previously moderately than brisker modern types. Apparent examples embrace René Pöckl’s Mystique mix, The Wild Boys of Membership Batonnage’s mix, Clemens Strobl’s Hengstberg Pinot Noir and the wines of Schloss Halbturn. It might be as a result of Austria is so intently related to white wines, these constructed from their very own Grüner Veltliner grape particularly, that the costs of the reds have lagged.

Like most wine-producing nations on the finish of the previous century, Austria went by a section of undue worship of French grape varieties on the expense of their very own. There was additionally a marked vogue for elevating blends, or cuvées, of native grapes with, say, Cabernet or Merlot over single-variety wines. However over the previous 10 years or so, the Blaufränkisch grape has more and more been recognised as an Austrian speciality to be pleased with.

Lots of the nation’s most revered reds are actually made completely from Blaufränkisch. That is the grape that’s referred to as Kékfrankos over the border in Hungary and Frankovka and Limberger elsewhere. It produces deep-coloured wines with actual character (purple fruits and pepper), tannin (so that they have longevity), in addition to freshness and the flexibility to specific terroir, each trendy Twenty first-century qualities. The wines can differ enormously and have, variously, jogged my memory of a tip-top Beaujolais Cru, a wonderful purple burgundy and, in these with probably the most spine, a Syrah from the northern Rhône.

The range, now grown from Washington state to Adelaide Hills, is most at house in Burgenland within the far east of Austria, with the schist and limestone of Leithaberg and the ferrous soils of Eisenberg offering the uncooked materials for intriguingly various expressions. A little bit of elevation helps mitigate Pannonian heat from Hungary. The Blaufränkisch revolution was arguably sparked on the upper websites of Mittelburgenland within the early 2010s, with Roland Velich’s geographically distinct bottlings beneath the Moric label, although wines from Ernst Triebaumer and Uwe Schiefer had already paved the way in which. The vine is late-ripening, which isn’t any dangerous factor in a rustic the place the harvest appears to start earlier yearly.

The opposite hotspot for Blaufränkisch is Carnuntum, the place Gerhard Markowitsch was the large identify for a very long time. Now he has been joined by Dorli Muhr, who has progressively and cunningly added to her grandmother’s vine holding on the slopes of Spitzerberg. Realizing that the majority of Carnuntum’s choicest previous vines have historically been tended by senior smallholders, she marketed for land within the native physician’s ready room and the church journal. She is satisfied of Blaufränkisch’s means to age and, if she might persuade her accountant, could be promoting her 2012s solely now.

From the 2019 classic, The Wine Society is providing “The Society’s Blaufränkisch”, which is produced by Hans Igler close to the Hungarian border in Mittelburgenland and is identical as his Traditional bottling. Igler relies barely east of the well-known Hungarian wine city of Sopron, which types itself the capital of Kékfrankos (grape varieties don’t respect political borders). A tasting of 4 older vintages demonstrated simply how properly Blaufränkisch ages. But the 2006, 2013 and 2017 have been all bought by The Wine Society at lower than £12 a bottle. Equally older vintages made on the celebrated biodynamic Birgit Braunstein property in Leithaberg have been supplied for lower than £20 a bottle.

Riedl is planning an occasion subsequent 12 months at which just a few influential professionals will evaluate the very best examples of Austrian Blaufränkisch with among the world’s most celebrated purple wines.

But it’s in no way solely Blaufränkisch that makes Austrian reds of curiosity. The nation’s commonest purple wine grape is Zweigelt, a crossing made within the Twenties between Blaufränkisch and one other Austrian purple wine grape, St Laurent. It actually hasn’t garnered the respect of its best-known mother or father, however I’m a fan. It could produce exuberantly fruity wines which can be stuffed with appeal of their youth. And St Laurent itself can produce velvety, flattering wines that are a bit like Pinot Noir on steroids.

All in all, Austria is a wealthy looking floor for lovers of purple wine — notably these in search of reds that aren’t too alcoholic. Of the 22 Austrian reds I tasted, just one was as sturdy as 14 per cent — and that 2006 tasted like a blast from the previous — whereas six had alcohol ranges of 12 per cent or 12.5 per cent.

Heaven is aware of how they do it in Austria’s continental local weather, particularly in Burgenland the place summer time days might be fairly steamy. However nationwide satisfaction within the freshness of their wines strikes this palate as justified.

Tasting notes on Purple Pages of JancisRobinson.com. Worldwide stockists from Wine-searcher.com

Observe Jancis on Twitter @JancisRobinson

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