Vienna. New Year’s concert. Yes. One, two, three. The Vienna of Klimt, of Schiele, of Zweig. One, two three, that of Sisí, Freud and Hundertwasser. The city of cafes, undisturbed by the passage of time, with Signora Monica Stauber at the helm of the centenary Sperl. The Vienna of Hitler, Stalin and Trotsky. It seems that the old Vinda Bona (Buenos Aires, as the Romans called it), no longer has any secrets. Nor does it say that it is the best city in the world to live in according to various barometers.
And in reality he has an ace up his sleeve, a card hidden and in plain sight, exuberant, leafy, intoxicating and far from the madding crowd. Actually, her most precious treasure. Federico García Lorca wrote about Vienna in his famous poem, about the Frost Museum. the one that the Morente or Sílvia Pérez Cruz have sung about, and that is what it is now, precisely, a blanket of 700 hectares of vineyards that surround three quarters of the city.
In the hills, expanses of intertwined vineyards where dew and silence now reign. Vienna shouts waltz, she dances Strauss, not only the rich. Each guild organizes its dance. That of the dentists, that of the plumbers… But when the summer ends, just after the generous harvest, the Viennese shout “Sturm! Sturm!”. And the heuriger (country taverns) and bars announce “storm, storm!”
It is the name of the must, cloudy and with green tones, fresh and sweet that comes from the first thought and that is drunk in the hills, in the same wineries, when the weather is good. It is time for pilgrimage, to breathe fresh air, to talk with the grape harvesters and winegrowers about how the harvest has gone: about 2.5 million liters. There are four routes: from Neustift to Nussdorf, from Strebersdorf to Staamersdorf, a third around Öttakring and a new one that runs along Mauer.
Forest, vineyards and stately houses. It is the Vienna that walks cross-country in hiking boots. The dancing and the pizzicato of the violins comes months later. In German Vienna is Wien and wine is wein. Chance? Maybe perfect motto? Definitely. WeinWien.Wienwein.
From above, among forests and clusters of chardonnay and pinot, you can see the city, the pinnacles of its cathedral and its churches and the meandering of the Danube (gray) and the canal that runs in parallel. There is no city in the world that has so many vineyards in its municipal area and 2023 has been a good year.
Barbara Wieninger, approaching 80, treads with panache on the land where she was born, raised, had children and continues to make wines. “Cut this way,” he tells the visitor, who is a little confused when he sees that in the same string of vines there are different types of wine. That’s the secret to Vienna’s wine secret: it’s called Gemischter Satz.
It is generally white, sparkling or sparkling wine, made from several kinds of grapes (up to 20 different ones) that over the years have acquired great quality and, for 10 years, a specific designation (Districtus Austriae Controllatus, DAC), in addition to the respect of vintners with more historical renown such as the Alsatians or the Germans.
“No two years are the same, the climate is chaotic, but we manage,” explains Barbara’s son Fritz, proud of the recognition that the Viennese wine variety has had in recent years and that the result of the union of the vintners (in total 140) that have established their standards and quality standards.
Vienna was for decades a bubble, oblivious to the rigors of Soviet influence (but awaiting the tanks in Bratislava 100 km away) and distanced from the accelerated progress of the rest of Western Europe.
It remains a bubble in the shape of wine, a sector that does not end in the hills, which is branched out in palaces, hotels, bars, restaurants and specific shops. The Palais Coburg, named after Austria’s second most important royal family after the Habsburgs, is a luxury hotel with no rooms. Suites only: 34.
The Palais is in all its corners; It is in its catacombs where you can admire one of the most impressive wineries in the world, with wines from all continents that, bottle by bottle, there are up to 60,000, totaling a value of 23 million euros.
In one of the six wineries, the New World one, which smells like the wood of a ship sailing the Atlantic or the Pacific and contains wines from Chile, Argentina, the United States, Australia and the “exploring countries”, Spain and Portugal. The largest bottle in the collection contains 27 liters of a Rioja wine. “We never buy bottles from auctions,” because we cannot know under what conditions they have been stored, explains Christian, one of the sommeliers.
“The oldest wine in the collection is from 1727 and we have others from 1795,” he recalls. There are wines with stratospheric prices, up to almost 150,000 euros, others 400 and some more affordable. In the bar, some are served at a price that, given the level, is acceptable.
On the walk through the depths of the Palais, a tasting of some wines: one from Georgia, orange in color, which is made with the oldest known winemaking technique, with neighborhood jars. The French winery is the star of this Viennese wine opera. Bottles worth 17 million waiting to be uncorked. A spectacle, without forgetting the storm of bubbles and prices from the cava cellar.
A 2002 R.D. Bollinger? Extra Brut Magnum? 850 euros. A Dom Pérignon Magnum from 2008? 950. An Arnould Rosé costs 100 euros. “Drinking a wine or cava that costs more than 400 euros is for those who know a lot, who know how to distinguish many notes,” points out the cicerone.
To avoid getting dizzy, you have to eat. All flavors and prices. The mark of outstanding chefs such as Heinz Reitbauer, Silvio Nickol, Paul Ivic or Juan Amador, of Spanish origin, the first three Michelin stars in the city.
At Das Hof, a restaurant on top of a building by Jean Nouvel, the experience is multiple: the views over the city are the most impressive, the food is top-notch, the wines served are all Viennese bubbling, in the air the beats of the DJ’s music and on the ceiling, like a burning and moving sky, the projections of the artist Pipilotti Rist.
At Alma, a gastrotheque run by Christina Nasr and chef and sommelier Andreas Schwart, wine is sacred but at rational prices and the menu pampers vegetables in all possible textures.
These are modern establishments, the classic heuriger need no introduction: the taverns offer traditional Viennese cuisine (that is, from all corners of what was the Austro-Hungarian Empire) such as schnitzel or tafelspitz, washed down with the owners’ wines.
It was always like this: Beethoven, who moved no less than 67 times (sometimes due to manias, other times due to debts) in Vienna drank and ate in dozens of heuriger, including the Mayer-am-Platz, which also bears his name because it is located four steps from the Beethoven museum and park. The Obermann is another flagship classic.
Wine in Vienna has become not an excuse to meet with friends, as coffee has traditionally been, but rather the motive, the driving force behind projects such as the Vinifero store, which is actually a winery run by a women’s association. , headed by Claire Yuan, who works as a network so that chefs and sommeliers occupy more spaces in Viennese restaurants.
Nowadays, the traditional figure of the ober, that arrogant waiter who served you almost out of pity, has declined in the old city on the Danube. The cafes are full of waitresses and the treatment is very different. Wine serves to liven up even workshops like those organized by ceramist Vera Grillmaier from the Never at Home association. The year ends and the city vibrates, tunes its instruments, while the earth sleeps under the blanket of dew waiting for a new harvest. Life, wine, violins, waltz, Vienna.