November 10, 2023 | Artisan Wine Shop meets Austria

Dead center in the heart of Europe, Austria is somewhat of an unsung hero when it comes to wine and viticulture.

Though Austria has been producing wine since 700-or-so B.C., it's only been within the last couple decades that it's landed on most wine lovers' radar. And in that time, its producers have learned to strike just the right balance of traditional and modern, homed in on terroir expression and made the country into a world leader of sustainable & holistic agriculture.

Fun Fact!:
Biodynamic farming, which encompasses many of the same practices associated with organic farming but predates the concept by 20-ish years, was developed by Austrian philosopher/social scientist Rudolf Steiner in 1924. So, as you may guess, the country is home to one of the world’s first biodynamic wineries, Nikolaihof, which began to implement some of Steiner’s principles in 1971. 

Austria shares borders with eight countries, however, most of its vineyards sit along its eastern edges, stretching over the Pannonian Plain and writhing alongside the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary and Slovenia. Landlocked, the country has a continental climate, with noticeable diurnal shifts from day to night and summer to winter, moderated somewhat by the Danube River in the north and Lake Neusiedl near Hungary, and broken up by a series of varied mesoclimates.

While it excels at white wine production (almost two-thirds of its officially permitted wine grape varieties are white, with Gruner Veltliner its most important), its reds can also be earthy, juicy and overall excellent.

Today (Friday 11.10!), we're exploring what all this diversity brings to the glass.
Stop by from 4-7 for a splash of two blends (a white and a skin-fermented) and a red.

If your curious, click the links below for more details on each bottle we're opening.

Kolfok 'Intra! The Wild' Burgenland 2022 
Weingut Diem d'Ora 'Orange' Niederösterreich 2022 1L
Markus Altenburger Blaufränkisch vom Kalk 2019