This article is taken from the April 2025 issue of The Critic. To get the full magazine why not subscribe? Right now we’re offering five issues for just £10.
The Austro-Hungarian empire had its own internal wine economy. The most famous was Tokaji, the great sweet wine that is still made in Hungary and on a much smaller scale in Slovakia. But according to wine-loving historian Giles MacDonogh there were other high quality sweet wines made across the empire including some notable ones from Romania.
The champagne mentioned in books like Beware of Pity by Stefan Zweig would almost certainly have been Austrian; there had been a thriving sparkling wine industry based around Wachau since the mid-nineteenth century. There were also renowned dry whites from the Sud Tyrol, now in Italy, and Chardonnay planted in modern day Slovenia to make something a bit like white Burgundy.
But what about red Burgundy? Was there a kaiserlich und königlich Beaune or Chambertin? MacDonogh wasn’t sure but a possible source for such a wine lies in the Burgenland region in the far east of Austria. This used to be part of Hungary but when the two countries were torn apart after the First World War, Austria got Burgenland. Stephen Brook in his book the Wines of Austria writes: “When I first visited the region thirty years ago there were still vestiges of Hungarian culture and a few obscure wine styles were based on Hungarian tradition.” Today one of the most prominent producers in the region is called Esterhazy, a grand Hungarian noble family.
It was one of the producers showing at a recent Wines of Austria event in London. Nobody there seemed to know exactly how far back the tradition of high quality reds goes back. One producer seemed to think that her grandfather sold most of his wine in bulk to taverns or restaurants until quite recently. Brook agreed that most reds would have been “for rustic local drinking.” There aren’t ancient bottles in the cellars or old maps pointing out the finest vineyards as there are in Burgundy or indeed Tokaji.
They’ve certainly made up for the previous lack of cartographic detail; I don’t think I’ve ever been to a tasting with so many maps. Ask a question and every grower pulled out multiple bits of paper to show exactly where the prime spots were and why they were so suitable for making red wine. There were also plenty of traditional Austrian jackets with bone buttons sported by the men as well as a fair amount of bowing, though thankfully no heel clicking.
Think of Austria and you might think of snow-capped Alps full of singing nuns, but the wine regions are all in the east of the country where it’s flatter. Here it gets very warm in summer, perfect for producing surprisingly ripe wines from local grapes. They’re nothing like German or Alsatian reds. When I visited my cousins in Vienna a few years back I was struck by the quality of the reds in even the most basic of taverns. It was a similar story in Budapest.
The signature grape is Blaufränkisch aka Kekfrankos in Hungarian, meaning “blue Frankish” though there is no evidence that it comes from France, which produces deeply coloured soft wines. Then there’s Sankt Laurent which tastes a bit like a woodland Pinot Noir and Zweigelt, a cross between Blaufränkisch and Saint Laurent which is leaner than Blaufränkisch often with a distinct peppery note. In addition, there’s long been Pinot Noir as well as more recent French arrivals such as Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Syrah. The latter are often blended with Blaufränkisch to create a kind of imperial claret.
While Burgenland has long been a red wine heartland, the rest of the Austrian wine industry discovered red wines in a big way in the 1990s. Pitnauer in Carnuntum which is near Vienna’s airport began making red wines in 1992. Johannes Pitnaeur told me that they adopted the emblem of the bee-eater, native to Africa, because it was an exotic bird, like an Austrian red wine. It’s not so exotic anymore with now something like 30 per cent of the country’s wine being red.
Despite the richness of the native varieties some of the wines weren’t always that good. My Viennese cousin used to bring us bottles in the noughties which were clumsy and over-oaked. From the evidence of the recent London tasting, those days are largely over. The reds were on the whole excellent ranging from the soft and juicy to the structured and elegant. There were also a few producers who leaned into the natural style, a bit wild, some funny flavours, which were pretty good too.
I like to think that these wines have venerable forebears
Most Austrian wine comes from small family growers who sell much of their produce locally often via the cellar door. They’re never going to be cheap but at the same time you don’t need to spend a lot of money: £15-25 will get you something memorable. Of the bigger merchants Tanners and The Wine Society both have good selections while Kipferl, an Austrian restaurant and patisserie in Islington, imports quite a few producers directly including one called K+K Kirnbauer which sadly doesn’t stand for kaiserlich und königlich.
I like to think that these wines have venerable forebears, drunk by magnificently mustachioed cavalry officers but sadly it seems that the origins of Austria’s reds are much more recent. They might not be imperial Burgundy but still they’re well worth seeking out.
