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Austria wrestles with vineyard classification

Julia Harding
Julia Harding MW
Tuesday 13 October 2015
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For the fruits of one approach to vineyard classification, see my tasting notes on 117 Austrian Rieslings and Grüner Veltliners. The story of the group that organised the tasting, the Traditionsweingüter Österreich (traditional wine estates of Austria), is what follows. My photo shows the Rosenberg vineyard in the Wagram region – an Erste Lage or 'first growth' according to the Traditionsweingüter.

 ‘The truth is rarely pure and never simple’, wrote Oscar Wilde in The Importance of Being Earnest. Equally, there is no pure and simple solution to establishing a regulatory system, or even an unofficial classification, that helps us...