Wine region
Wachau
The Wachau: about 1,350 hectares of terraces on the Danube between Melk and Krems, Grüner Veltliner and Riesling, Steinfeder, Federspiel, Smaragd.
- Vineyard area
- about 1,350 hectares along more than 30 kilometres of Danube valley
- Main grapes
- Grüner Veltliner (just over half), Riesling (about a sixth)
- Soils and climate
- primary rock (gneiss) and loess; cool air from the Waldviertel meets Pannonian warmth
- Signature wines
- Grüner Veltliner and Riesling as Steinfeder, Federspiel and Smaragd
- Landmark
- UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2000: terraces with dry-stone walls
The Wachau is a narrow stretch of the Danube valley between Melk and Krems in Lower Austria, more than 30 kilometres long. Winegrowing probably goes back to Roman times, and as early as the 9th century, under the Carolingians, the Wachau appears in a charter. Today about 1,350 hectares of vines climb to roughly 450 metres, often on terraces held up by dry-stone walls; a large part of the vineyard is terraced, and the walls together run to several hundred kilometres. Since 2000 the Wachau cultural landscape has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site, as Lavaux in Switzerland became in 2007.
The climate comes from two worlds: from the north, cool, oxygen-rich air flows from the Waldviertel through small side valleys down to the Danube; from the east the warmer Pannonian climate reaches in. This constant circulation of air shapes the aromas of the grapes. On the terraces the soils are meagre, weathered primary rock such as gneiss; lower down, islands of loess have produced light, sandy soils.
Just over half of the vineyard is Grüner Veltliner, Austria’s signature variety, which also leads nationwide with about a third of the country’s vineyards; about a sixth is Riesling. Grüner Veltliner is spicy, with green apple, citrus and a note of white pepper; Riesling gives peach, citrus and a fine minerality.
The Wachau is known for its own voluntary system. The growers’ association Vinea Wachau, founded in 1983 and today made up of about 200 estates that all harvest by hand, created three brands from 1984 onwards for dry white wines without noticeable oak: Steinfeder (up to 11.5 per cent alcohol, light and fragrant, named after feather grass), Federspiel (11.5 to 12.5 per cent, named after falconry) and Smaragd (from 12.5 per cent, fully ripe grapes, complex and long-lived, named after the green lizard of the dry-stone walls). Since 2020 the DAC (Districtus Austriae Controllatus) has been added, with three levels: Gebietswein, Ortswein naming the village, and Riedenwein naming the single vineyard (Ried); Riedenwein is Grüner Veltliner or Riesling and may not be enriched.
What to drink it with: a Grüner Veltliner Federspiel with Wiener Schnitzel, a Riesling Smaragd with pike-perch and trout from the Danube or with poultry, a mature Grüner Veltliner Smaragd with white meat, a Steinfeder as an aperitif. For dessert, the local apricot, the Wachauer Marille, has a protected designation of origin.