Austria

Austria is still one of the wine making world's best kept secrets. For a country whose wine production equals that of the Loire Valley they produce quite a wide range of styles from many different grape varieties. With renewed focus on terroir,moving away from international styles and grape varieties,Austria is producing consistently interesting, fascinating wines that are wonderfully complex... and not many people know about it.

To the west, along the Danube, cooler summers are perfect for white varietals such as Riesling and Gruner Veltliner with wonderful acidic structure and finesse. As you move east towards Lake Neusidelersee the temperature gets warmer and you can find early picked, lighter, more fragrant reds, such as Pinot Noir, Zweigelt and St Laurent. The more thick skinned varieties such as Blaufränkisch and Cabernet Sauvignon are left on the vine a little longer for more depth of character and complexity. The humidity from the lake makes this a wonderful sweet wine making region, producing some of the purest Trockenbeerenausleses, Beerenausleses and Eisweins from a host of white grape varieties, and the Ausbruch from this region has been popular since the 17th century.