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.
Langenlois is the centre of the Kamptal: about 7,500 people at 219 metres, usually described as the largest wine-growing town in Austria. On its edge stands Steven Holl’s Loisium, an aluminium wine centre from 2003 built over the old cellar labyrinth. Zöbing, a village that belongs to the town, sits at the foot of the Heiligenstein, the one vineyard everyone here can name.
Krems and Stein, downstream, are the old river port at the eastern gate of the Wachau. Stein is the quieter half, one long street between hill and water; Krems has the Steiner Tor, the mustard and the university. Locals say Krems and Stein are three towns, because the hamlet between them is called Und, which means “and”. Across the river, the Benedictine abbey of Göttweig, founded in 1083, has the best view of the whole Kremstal.
This is where I take guests after the Wachau on the Wachau, Kamptal and Burgenland tour. The gorge teaches drama; the Kamptal teaches Grüner Veltliner.
Terroir: Permian sandstone, loess and gneiss between 200 and 400 metres#
The Heiligenstein is a geological accident that faces south: desert sandstone and conglomerate from the Permian, 250 to 270 million years old, an island of hard, hot ground among younger, softer soils. The name is usually explained as “hot stone” rather than “holy stone”, and a July afternoon on the terraces makes the case. Riesling grows here, and little else matters.
Below and around it lies loess: wind-blown silt from the ice ages, deep, calcareous, water-holding. The Lamm at Kammern is loess, and so are the big Kremstal slopes at Rohrendorf and Gedersdorf. Loess is Grüner Veltliner’s soil here; it gives flesh and spice rather than nerve. Further up both valleys the rock changes to gneiss and mica schist, at Senftenberg in the Krems valley and on the Steinmassl above Langenlois, and the wines tighten.
Vineyards run from about 200 to 400 metres. The climate is Pannonian warmth from the east, cooled at night by air sliding down the Kamp from the Waldviertel. It is warmer and more open than the Wachau, which is why Kamptal Grüner Veltliner tastes rounder than its gorge cousin, and why the Rieslings need the Heiligenstein’s stone to keep their edge. Harvest runs through October.
Grapes and styles: Grüner Veltliner, Riesling and Kamptal Sekt#
Both valleys are DAC appellations, Kremstal from the 2007 vintage and Kamptal from 2008, and both reserve the name for Grüner Veltliner and Riesling in three tiers, regional, village and single vineyard (Ried is the legal word for a named site), plus a riper Reserve at 13 percent alcohol or more, a touch of oak or botrytis allowed. A regional Kamptal DAC Grüner Veltliner is the Austrian default with Schnitzel, and I say that with respect.
Grüner Veltliner from loess: white pepper, lentil, green apple when young, honey and dried hay with age. The Lamm makes the richest version in the Kamptal. Riesling from the Heiligenstein: lime, stone, apricot, a dry, saline finish. The good bottles age for twenty years, and I would not open a Reserve before its fifth birthday.
The rest of the vineyard is more varied than the DAC suggests: serious Weißburgunder and Chardonnay, Pinot Noir at Langenlois, Zweigelt and St. Laurent in the red glass at the Heuriger. The Kamptal is also where Austrian traditional-method Sekt is at its most convincing; Bründlmayer’s spends three years on its lees.
Producers to know: Bründlmayer, Hirsch, Nigl and their neighbours#
Bründlmayer, Langenlois. The family has been in the town since 1581; Willi Bründlmayer has led the estate since 1980. Ninety hectares, about 70 percent white, led by Grüner Veltliner and Riesling. Riesling from the Zöbinger Heiligenstein, Grüner Veltliner from the Kammerner Lamm. About 17 hectares stand on the Lyra trellis, a divided canopy Willi helped develop; certified organic since 2019. The Heurigenhof, a 16th-century Renaissance house in the old town, serves the range with a proper kitchen. More in my story from Langenlois.
Hirsch, Kammern. Johannes Hirsch farms 31 hectares of Grüner Veltliner and Riesling and nothing else; a founding member of respekt-BIODYN, the Austrian biodynamic association, and the first Austrian estate fully under screwcap, in 2002. Riesling from the Heiligenstein and the Gaisberg; Grüner Veltliner from the Lamm. Classic in style, biodynamic in the vineyard: the combination I describe in biodynamics without mysticism.
Nigl, Senftenberg. Up the Krems valley, on gneiss and mica schist, Martin Nigl works steep terraces of Grüner Veltliner and Riesling; the Piri is the Riesling to know. The family runs Hotel Nigl with a restaurant, so a night here is possible.
Loimer, Langenlois: Fred Loimer, biodynamic, co-president of respekt-BIODYN, fine Sekt. Schloss Gobelsburg: the Zwettl abbey’s estate, run since 1996 by Michael Moosbrugger, with Heiligenstein Riesling and Lamm Grüner Veltliner. Nikolaihof of Mautern farms the Steiner Hund, a terraced Riesling site above Stein; see the Nikolaihof story. On the low-intervention side, Martin and Anna Arndorfer in Strass are the Kamptal name you will meet on natural-wine lists; I pour them beside the classics, as I explain in what I pour.
What a day in the Kamptal looks like on tour#
We start in Krems, where we have slept, with a walk through Stein before the shops open, then cross the bridge to Göttweig for coffee on the abbey terrace, the Kremstal laid out below.
By 11:00 we are in Zöbing. The Heiligenstein walk is an easy half hour up through the terraces, and I stop where the sandstone breaks through the path so you can hold the rock the Riesling grows in. A tasting follows at one of the Kammern or Langenlois estates: loess against stone, young against old, the whole lesson in six glasses.
Lunch is at the Heurigenhof Bründlmayer: Schnitzel with the Kamptaler Terrassen Grüner Veltliner, or Zander with a Heiligenstein Riesling if the kitchen has it. Afternoon in the Langenlois cellar lanes or the Loisium’s underground tour, then a glass at Nigl’s in Senftenberg before we are back in Krems by 18:00.
On the full tour this is the second day, between the Wachau and the drive south to Burgenland. It also makes a clean private day from Vienna.
Practical: distances from Vienna and Brno, and the best months#
From Vienna, Krems is one hour by car or train and Langenlois about the same; Krems to Langenlois is 15 minutes. From my base in Brno it is 2 h 15 to Langenlois and 2 h 30 to Krems. Vienna airport adds 25 minutes; Linz airport is 1 h 20 from Krems. Motorways need a digital vignette, and Heurigen often take cash only.
Best months are May to June and September to October. In May the loess slopes are green and the Heurigen gardens open; September brings harvest and Sturm, October the clearest air over the Heiligenstein. July and August are warm and the Wachau is crowded; the Kamptal takes the overflow with more grace.
Read the Austria country guide for the whole picture, the Wachau guide for the day before, and the Vienna guide for the Heuriger evening that ends most of my Austrian weeks.
