Recently I've been drinking (tasting) a lot more Austrian wines than before. I don't know how it started, maybe the good marketing behind their industry or just a simple coincidence, but I certainly started get a feel for it.
In the begging of this year me and my colleague Anna visited the Austrian Trade Tasting in London and tried a fair amount of wines there. We actually met a few producers we really liked - not just them personally but their products too - and made a decision to start importing a few new wines.
The first producers we met was Leo and Silvane from Weingut Sommer, a young couple from Burgenland which is the eastern part of the country right on the Hungarian border. They had lovely well balanced wines, nothing too out of the ordinary just very good. Straight away I knew this is going to be a good tasting. We talked with them and they were very friendly and genuine, we asked them for samples of their reds and dessert wines, so we can try them and make a decision on what we want. At the moment we are waiting for their new wines to be released.
Right next to the Sommers were our second winery we sampled on the day and I was glad we stopped at their table. Laurin Seymann and her mum Nancy Lee was representing their small family farm from Niederosterreich, or as we call it Lower Austria. Yes, you guessed well, there is something about the name Nancy Lee Seymann. She is originally from California married to an Austrian winemaker and now making wine in the region. We loved their attitude towards nature and natural winemaking and there was one particular wine which stunned us, this was Laurin's recommendation the Rosa Deum which is a blend of Gelber and Roter Traminer with Gruner Veltliner. Tiny production only 520 bottles were made. Unfortunately not cheap thought :) The hand crafted labels made by Nancy Lee also adds to the charm.
After a strong start on this event we felt that we might not find anything else, but a label and a man striked us in the next room. This was Marc from Rockabilly Weinkult, a gentleman with some stunning labels and as it turned out with some extraordinary wines. These guys are third generation winemakers with a new design from Lower Austria again. We loved their Weissburgunder and Gruner Veltliner and since then we tasted their red blend, the Maximilian Cuvee too which is also very very drinkable.
We already have an Austrian wine in stock which is the Beck Ink (Zweigelt, St Laurent) made by Judith Beck from Burgenland but a few more wouldn't hurt we thought, so watch this space as they say... ;)
1 comment
thank you Csaba for your openmindedness and curious tastebuds, deep bow. It´s the beginning of a lovely relationship #loveLondon #winelover