Hello Friends and Wine Lovers!

Welcome to the Best Thursday of the Week! Being that there is only one Thursday per week, that automatically makes this the best right? And Thursday is always good because it brings you the Carpe Vinum Thursday Newsletter of the Week and the Tasting Announcement of the Week for the Friday Which Is Generally the Best Day of the Week For Various Reasons! For this week’s tasting, I’m making good on a promise from a month ago to feature all wines from Austria! Austrian wine is now coming into its own after a rather dodgy past, but I think it’s safe to say that this one is going to be spectacular. As a region I heretofore knew relatively little, after doing a bit of research, I think it’s definitely one of the more exciting revitalized wine regions in Europe.

Until now I had been in the habit of combining the tastings of German wines with those of Austria. Last month while preparing to do that, I realized that although Austria has similar wine laws to Germany, and although everyone else seems to lump the two together, they are really nothing alike. Germany is farther North, and the wines reflect the colder continental climate with a lot of Riesling. Austria shares a bit of this with Germany, as they do have a few Rieslings, but it shares more in common with its other neighbors of Hungary, Slovakia, Slovenia and the Czech Republic. In fact, considering the Austrian wine region is all in the Eastern part of the country, the proximity is nowhere near the German wine regions. But as I’ve never seen any wines from the other Eastern European countries, we don’t have much available for comparison.

Austria has been slowly recovering from some bad press 22 years ago in 1985. It was The Antifreeze Scandal! Remember The Simpsons Episode 7G13 “The Crepes of Wrath” where Bart goes to France and miraculously learns French in two weeks and uncovers some unruly winemakers adding antifreeze to the wines to “give it more kick”? Well, it wasn’t really like that . . . although I bet the writers were giving a nod to the real events.

Now before you panic like everyone did in 1985 in thinking that the Austrians are adding antifreeze to wines, know that it was a misunderstanding. There were a few winemakers that were adding Diethylene Glycol, basically sugar, to the wines to give them more body. Many people in the press confused it with Ethylene Glycol which is antifreeze. Diethylene Glycol, as a sugary liquid, is mostly harmless. But, hey . . . the practice was still illegal. The bad press combined with the misunderstanding of chemical compounds, the damage had been done and the Austrian wine sales dropped by about 80%.

That incident, although disastrous for the economics of the Austrian wine industry at the time, was really what made Austrian wine so much better right now. The Austrian wine laws are now the strictest in the world. But also the effect was felt on the overall quality of the wines. Rather than focusing on the high-yield bulk sweeter wines, the dry red and white wines of higher quality and lower-yields are now reigning.

To know Austrian wine is to know the Gruner Veltliner grape, a white grape indigenous to Eastern Europe. Austria has made that its flagship grape and about a third of the production in Austria is dedicated to it. I’ve recently fallen in love with the wines made from this grape, but the styles seem to range so much that I thought it would be a good idea to try a number of them together to get a better idea of the nature of this wine. There are other white wines in the area: Riesling, Pinot Gris, Pinot Blanc, Chardonnay, Muller Thurgau and others, but we only have so much space, right? And we need room for red!

So being situated farther South than much of winegrowing-Europe, reds do well here. Again, like the Gruner Veltliner, I’m really interested in the native varietals seldom seen elsewhere. The main three are the Saint Laurent and the Blaufrankisch, and the hybrid between the two, Zweigelt. We know Blaufrankisch in the US as Lemberger, not to be confused with the stinky cheese Limburger. Heck, most of us only know the stinky cheese from cartoons, anyway. Maybe it’s good. I’ve never tried it, but I have had some really stinky French cheese . . . the kind that you can still smell through the fridge door, even though it’s wrapped in three layers of plastic wrap and encased in a kryptonite food-storage box. Wait, where was I? Ah. Lemberger is Blaufrankisch. It is a medium-bodied red wine that still has a sturdy tannin structure. Zweigelt is a bit fruitier and spicier, and as Saint Laurent is fairly rare, I’ve never had it on its own. Which is what brings us to the tasting tomorrow.

We’ve got three Gruner Veltliner, each from a different Austrian growing region, chosen to better know the characteristics of this fine white wine. And also to enjoy the final warm throes of the . . . (sigh) . . . end of summer. In the red category I’ve made sure to include one each of Blaufrankisch, Zweigelt and Saint Laurent, and then a blend of all three. I really excited about this one. New and interesting is always exciting. Especially when it’s a comeback. The Great Austrian Comeback!

So Friday, September 7th, between 4:30 and 9:00 PM it’s:

Austria!!!
Hirsh 2005 Gruner Veltliner Heililgenstrin, Kamptal
Familie Nigl 2005 Gruner Veltliner Kremser Freiheit, Kremstal
Heinrich 2006 RED (Zweigelt, Blaufrankisch, Saint Laurent), Neusiedlersee
Umathum 2005 Zweigelt, Neusiedlersee
Zantho 2005 Blaufrankisch, Neusiedlersee

More Austria!!!
Knoll 2006 Gruner Veltliner Federspiel Kreutles, Wachau
Glatzer 2003 Saint Laurent Altenberg, Carnuntum

A stellar deal at $10 for the First 5, $6 for the Extra 2 Premium Pours.

Hope to see you here!

Seize the Wine!

Next Friday tasting is Spain’s Catalunya: Penedes, Priorat, Cava, Montsant and maybe Maillorca!

M