Austrian food guide: what the PDO and PGI names protect, from Wachauer Marille to Tiroler Speck

The short answer

A place name on Austrian food may be an EU-protected name. The EU register lists 11 Austrian food names as protected designations of origin (PDO) and 6 as protected geographical indications (PGI), and 10 registered spirit drinks naming Austria as geographical indications (GI).[2]

The labels differ in how much has to happen in the named place. The European Commission says a PDO requires every part of production, processing and preparation to take place in the region, while for a PGI, for most products, at least one stage must; for a spirit-drink GI at least one stage of distillation or preparation must, and the raw materials need not come from the region. For food, the Commission says the PDO or PGI label is mandatory; for spirits the GI label is optional.[1]

Most of Austria's 17 food names are PDOs, and seven of those eleven are cheeses, among them Vorarlberger Bergkäse, Tiroler Graukäse, Gailtaler Almkäse and Ennstaler Steirerkas.[2] This guide quotes the register's own files, most of them the original 1995 applications; where the register lists later amendments, XTOUR has not read them, and the current specification may differ.

Wachauer Marille: the apricot

Wachauer Marille is a PDO with an EU protection date of 21 June 1996.[2] Its 1995 application, filed by a working committee for apricot growing based in Mautern, used a longer name, "Wachauer Qualitätsmarille", and defined the area as Wachau-Mautern-Krems. It describes the fruit as mainly the local variety "Klosterneuburger Marille", 45 to 60 grams, honey-yellow with half or more of the fruit reddened, picked by hand up to five times a year, taking only ripe fruit each time.[3]

The application traces the word "Marille" for apricots in the area to 1509 and dates large-scale commercial growing to 1890, and it links the fruit's character to the meeting of Pannonian and Waldviertel climates near the Danube, with large differences between day and night temperatures at ripening.[3] The register lists later Official Journal publications for the name from 2012 and 2013 that XTOUR has not read.[2]

The apricot also has three spirit names: Wachauer Marillenbrand, Wachauer Marillenlikör and Wachauer Weinbrand, all registered spirit GIs.[2] The Marillenbrand file says the brandy may be made only from fully ripe fruit meeting the Wachauer Marille specification, in distilleries in 21 listed municipalities from Aggsbach-Markt to Weißenkirchen, including Krems, Dürnstein, Spitz and Mautern.[4] These apricot areas are not the World Heritage Wachau, which the Austrian Commission for UNESCO counts as 15 municipalities from Melk in the west to Krems in the east,[11] nor the Wachau wine area; Austrian wine regions explained sets the three side by side. For choosing a base in the valley, see Wachau: Krems, Dürnstein or Melk as a base.

Steirisches Kürbiskernöl: the clearest PGI

Steirisches Kürbiskernöl, Styrian pumpkin seed oil, is a PGI protected since 1996, and its file shows what the looser label allows.[2] The 1995 summary describes a dark, viscous oil pressed from the hull-less seeds of the Styrian oil pumpkin, and requires the pressing to take place only in nine districts of southern Styria and three of southern Burgenland. The seeds may come from that area and also from named districts of Lower Austria, among them Hollabrunn, Horn, Mistelbach and Melk. So the pressing is tied to southern Styria and southern Burgenland, while some of the seeds may come from Lower Austria, which fits the PGI rule the Commission describes.[1][5] The register lists amendments published in 2015, 2022 and 2023 that XTOUR has not read.[2]

Speck and the Tyrolean cheeses

Tiroler Speck is a registered PGI, protected since 1997. Its German-language application, oddly, is headed as an application for a "protected designation of origin (g.g.A.)", mixing the two labels; the register lists it as a PGI.[6][2] The summary sets the area as the Austrian Bundesland of Tirol, lists the cuts (leg, loin, shoulder, belly, neck), and requires dry salting, smoking at no more than 20 °C and air-drying at 10 to 15 °C. As evidence of tradition it cites a price fixed for a pound of speck on 23 July 1573.[6] Gailtaler Speck is a separate PGI.[2]

Tiroler Graukäse, a PDO, is unlike the hard mountain cheeses: its summary describes an acid-curd cheese made without added rennet, in small loaves of one to about four kilograms, only on farms in the Bundesland of Tyrol, which it glosses as North Tyrol and East Tyrol. It notes a regional difference too: fatty and well matured in the Upper Inn Valley, curd-like in the Lower Inn Valley.[8] Tiroler Bergkäse and Tiroler Almkäse (also registered as Tiroler Alpkäse) are further PDOs.[2]

Vorarlberg's mountain cheese

Vorarlberger Bergkäse is a PDO whose summary names its valleys: it may be made only in the Bregenzerwald, Kleinwalsertal, Großwalsertal, Laiblachtal and Rheintal, from raw milk produced in Vorarlberg by herds not fed silage. Wheels weigh 8 to 35 kilograms and are ready at the earliest at three to six months, the summary says, and it dates the marketing co-operative to 1921.[7] Vorarlberger Alpkäse is a separate PDO, and the register lists 2023 amendments to both that XTOUR has not read.[2]

The table restates the files cited in the surrounding sections.

Vegetables, fruit and bread

Marchfeldspargel is a PGI for asparagus from the Marchfeld, which its summary defines as the plain east of Vienna between the Danube and the March, ending at the Vienna city boundary. The summary recognises four colour groups, from white to green, dates the Marchfeld's importance for asparagus to the 19th century and says some farms supplied the imperial court in Vienna.[9] The other plant names are Steirische Käferbohne and Pöllauer Hirschbirne (PDOs), Steirischer Kren (PGI) and Waldviertler Graumohn (PDO); Lesachtaler Brot, a PGI, is the only bread.[2] XTOUR has not read their files.

Spirits

Inländerrum is the broadest name on the list. Its technical file says it is produced in every region of Austria, from rum flavoured with "Inländerrum" essence, and that distillation and production take place exclusively in Austria; it notes that Inländerrum was already mentioned in the first edition of the Austrian Food Code, published in 1917.[10] The other Austrian spirit GIs are Jägertee (also Jagertee and Jagatee), Mariazeller Magenlikör, Steinfelder Magenbitter and Pregler, also registered as Osttiroler Pregler.[2]

Two names are shared across borders: Korn, or Kornbrand, is registered for Austria, Germany and Belgium together, and Pálinka for Hungary and Austria.[2] Wine names follow the same EU scheme and are covered in Austrian wine regions explained; the state names that recur in these files are set out in Austria's federal states and place names.

What XTOUR does not tell you

XTOUR does not name producers, shops or markets and does not rate products. It quotes the register's files as they stand in the register's attachments, many of them 1995 applications with later amendments it has not read. It has not read the files for Gailtaler Speck, Ennstaler Steirerkas, Lesachtaler Brot or the plant names above, and does not describe them. Krems, one of the municipalities named in the Marillenbrand file, is on XTOUR as Krems an der Donau; the town is part of the apricot's area, not the whole of it. Other Austrian destinations are on the Austria country page.