Austria on Dante Minutello · Wine Tours with a Sommelier

Vienna wine region: Gemischter Satz and the Heuriger

Sun, 15 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0100

The place: a capital with 588 hectares of vines#

Vienna is the only European capital with a wine region of real size inside its city limits: 588 hectares, most of it on two hills that face each other across the Danube. From Brno it is 90 minutes, which makes Vienna the closest foreign wine region to my door and the base for my Austria tour.

Styria: Sauvignon Blanc, Opok and South Styria's wine road

Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0100

The place: South Styria from Ehrenhausen to Leutschach#

Styria is the green corner of Austria, the south-east, where the last hills before Slovenia are planted so steeply that the rows look drawn with a ruler on a rumpled cloth. It is the country’s third wine region by size, 5,109 hectares in three appellations, and the one that feels least like the Danube: farms, chapels, pumpkin fields and vines.

Burgenland: Blaufränkisch, Gols, Rust and the Neusiedlersee

Fri, 13 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0100

The place: a shallow lake and the villages round it#

Burgenland is Austria’s second wine state by area, about 11,500 hectares, and the one closest to my door in Brno: Gols is 2 h 15 away by way of Bratislava, closer than Prague. Almost everything that matters happens round the Neusiedlersee, a steppe lake 36 kilometres long, on average a metre deep, ringed by reeds and shared with Hungary, a national park since 1993 and a UNESCO cultural landscape since 2001.

Kamptal and Kremstal wine region: Heiligenstein to Krems

Thu, 12 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0100

The place: Langenlois, Zöbing, Krems and Stein#

Austria’s Kamptal is the valley of the Kamp, a river that comes down off the Waldviertel granite and joins the Danube a little east of Krems. The Kremstal is the next valley west, with the twin town of Krems and Stein at its mouth. They are separate appellations, 15 minutes of road apart, and I tour them as one day.

Wachau wine region: Grüner Veltliner and Riesling on gneiss

Wed, 11 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0100

The place: a Danube gorge from Melk to Krems#

The Wachau is 36 kilometres of the Danube in Lower Austria, between Melk abbey upstream and the twin towns of Krems and Stein downstream. The river has cut a gorge through the southern edge of the Bohemian Massif, and the vines climb the sun-facing bank in dry-stone terraces built without mortar: 1,285 hectares, a UNESCO cultural landscape since 2000. It is two and a half hours from my door in Brno, and the region I name first when someone asks me about Austrian white wine.