Austria's winemakers growing international success 26 June 2008

Even Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart drank wine from Austria. Today it's not only the chocolate balls named after him that are in demand worldwide, Austrian wine has also become internationally sought after.

The Austrian wine sector has gone forward, particularly in the last few years. Today, Wines from Austria signifies exceptional quality and Austria vintners run successful businesses. At international industry events they have been picking up strings of awards and redrawing landscapes with their spectacular architecture:Wine and Architecture, Audio Stream [mp3, 955.9kb]

Austria's wine-growing areais split into four regions:

• "Weinland Österreich" (Lower Austria and Burgenland)
• "Steirerland" (Styria)
• the capital city of Vienna with a wine growing area of - for a city - an imposing 700 hectares
• and "Bergland Österreich", which covers the remainder of the federal provinces

After two low-yielding years, the harvest in 2007 rose by 16% to 2.6 million hectolitres. Across Austria, 1.6 million hectolitres of white wine and 1 million hectolitres of red wine have been produced. In total around 30 grape varieties are officially 'classified' and authorised for use in production of quality wines. The main variety in Austria is Grüne Veltliner, accounting for around 36% of the grape growing area. This is followed by Welschriesling (8.91%), Müller-Thurgau (6.78%) and Weißer Burgunder (6.05%). At the top of the reds are the Zweigelt (8.97%), followed by Blaufränkisch and Blauer Portugieser.

In 2007 Austrian winemakers exported 56 million litres of wine with a total value of more than EUR 105 million.The three most important export markets are Germany, Switzerland and the USA.   

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