Beginning my recent trip to Austria with three days at
VieVinum, the Austrian wine trade fair held every other year in Vienna, gave me
the immersion course I needed before driving into the countryside to visit
winemakers. I attended with a small group of wine professionals based (except
myself) in California and connected in various ways to Blue Danube Wine
Company.
The fair is held in a magnificent setting—a wing of the
colossal imperial palace of the Habsburgs, called the Hofburg, in the center of
Vienna. The Hofburg was the seat of the Habsburgs from the 13th
century until 1918, with new rooms and wings being added to the original
medieval fortress over the centuries. Its 2,600 rooms now house the offices of
the federal president, ministers and secretaries; the national library; museums
and the imperial apartments, which can be seen by visitors; and much more.
The
rooms devoted to VieVinum were gilded and chandeliered, and occasionally one
encountered an 18th-century stove in the corner of an otherwise empty
room.
The fair itself offered an opportunity to design one’s own
Austrian wine education, whether by focusing on regionally themed rooms where
hundreds of wine producers set up tables and poured their wines, or by tasting
single grapes across many regions. Tasting 80 to 100 wines each day, asking
questions of producers, talking to whoever stood at one’s elbows, exchanging
cards—your typical trade fair.
There were also seminars and daytrips to attend, offered by
the official organizers or by groups of producers. I started the fair Saturday
morning with one of these: a breakfast tasting of Gemischter Satz. This is a
type of fruity white wine that is grown in the vineyards that lie on the edges
of the city of Vienna, within the city limits. The wine style is a “field
blend” of at least three and up to twenty-plus different grape varieties grown together
in the same vineyards and harvested and vinified all at the same time. Some are
available in the U.S. (look for Wieninger, for starters), and with their uncomplicated
style and spritzy freshness, they couldn’t be better suited to breakfast or
brunch.
Left: View of the fair. Above: Six-foot stoves are still found in some rooms.
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