Wine region
Burgenland
Burgenland: about 11,500 hectares around Lake Neusiedl, Blaufränkisch, Zweigelt and St. Laurent, sweet wines from Rust and Illmitz, Leithaberg DAC.
- Vineyard area
- about 11,500 hectares, over a quarter of Austria’s vineyards
- Main grapes
- Zweigelt, Blaufränkisch, St. Laurent; then Pinot Blanc and Chardonnay
- Climate
- Pannonian, warm and dry; the shallow Lake Neusiedl favours noble rot
- Signature wines
- Blaufränkisch, Zweigelt, Leithaberg, Ruster Ausbruch, Beerenauslese
- Landmark
- Lake Neusiedl, a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2001 together with Hungary
Burgenland, Austria’s easternmost state, has belonged to Austria only since 1921; before that it was part of Hungary. With about 11,500 hectares it carries more than a quarter of Austria’s vineyards and is, after Lower Austria with about 26,700 hectares, the second-largest wine state. The climate is Pannonian, warm and dry, and it is shaped by Lake Neusiedl: a shallow steppe lake on the Hungarian border, at most about 1.8 metres deep, which has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2001 together with the neighbouring Hungarian landscape.
Around the lake grow Austria’s most famous sweet wines. Because the lake is so shallow, noble rot forms in many autumns. The small town of Rust on the western shore became a royal free city in 1681; Ruster Ausbruch, a sweet wine typically made from botrytised, shrivelled grapes with at least 30 degrees KMW, the level of a Trockenbeerenauslese, has been a DAC of its own since 2020. On the eastern shore, around Illmitz, Beerenauslese and Trockenbeerenauslese are also made. From a Swiss point of view it recalls the Flétri of Valais, a sweet wine from grapes dried on the vine.
Burgenland is Austria’s red-wine country. Zweigelt, crossed in 1922 at Klosterneuburg by Fritz Zweigelt from Blaufränkisch and St. Laurent, is the country’s most planted red variety: fruity, with cherry and pepper, juicy and easy. Blaufränkisch is regarded as the more serious one: dark fruit, spice, pepper, lively acidity and firm tannin. It is at home in Mittelburgenland, the “Blaufränkischland”, a DAC since the 2005 vintage, and on the Eisenberg in the south. In Württemberg it is called Lemberger, in Hungary Kékfrankos. St. Laurent, related to Pinot Noir, is delicate but can turn silky and cherry-fruited.
Burgenland has several DACs: Neusiedlersee, for Zweigelt reds and for sweet wines; Leithaberg, on the slopes of the Leithagebirge north-west of the lake, for Blaufränkisch and for whites of Pinot Blanc, Chardonnay, Neuburger or Grüner Veltliner; Mittelburgenland and Eisenberg mainly for Blaufränkisch, Rosalia for Blaufränkisch and Zweigelt, and finally Ruster Ausbruch.
What to drink it with: Zweigelt with Wiener Schnitzel, goulash and grilled meats, Blaufränkisch with beef, lamb and game, in November with the St Martin’s goose, a custom tied to Martin, the state’s patron saint; a white Leithaberg with asparagus, an Ausbruch or a Beerenauslese with blue cheese or poppy-seed strudel.