Austrian wine regions explained: state names, Wachau, Weinviertel and the EU register

The short answer

Austria's wine names work in layers. The EU register lists 27 Austrian wine PDOs that are not flagged as removed, and 3 wine PGIs. At the top, every one of the nine federal states is itself a protected wine name; the three PGIs group those states; and inside them sit smaller PDOs such as Wachau, Kamptal or Weinviertel, each with an area defined municipality by municipality or district by district in its technical file.[26][25][24][2]

The European Commission explains what the two labels mean for wine: for a PDO the grapes must come exclusively from the area where the wine is made, for a PGI at least 85% of them must, and on wine both labels are optional.[1] This article describes regions as the EU register and its files define them. The Austrian Wine Marketing Board's own region pages could not be opened (a security challenge refused the request), so XTOUR does not describe regions as the Board does, and does not explain the Austrian DAC system.

The state names: all nine are wine names

The technical files for Wien, Niederösterreich, Burgenland and Steiermark each define the area as the whole Bundesland of that name.[14][13][12][11] So do the files for Tirol, Salzburg, Vorarlberg, Kärnten and Oberösterreich.[29] The register gives Burgenland, Niederösterreich, Steiermark, Tirol and Vorarlberg an EU protection date of 1999, Wien 1996, and Kärnten, Oberösterreich and Salzburg 2004.[2]

The three PGIs then group the states. Weinland covers the vineyards of Niederösterreich, Burgenland and Wien; Bergland those of Oberösterreich, Kärnten, Salzburg, Tirol and Vorarlberg; Steirerland those of Steiermark.[26][25][24] XTOUR's reading: a label that says only "Niederösterreich" or "Steiermark" names the broadest PDO for that state, and "Weinland" or "Bergland" a still wider PGI. How the states themselves are named in English is set out in Austria's federal states and place names.

Lower Austria: Wachau, Kremstal, Kamptal and the rest

Lower Austria (Niederösterreich) has the most named areas, and their files draw the lines precisely.

The table restates the files cited in this section.[10][9][7][6][8][5][4][3]

Wachau is the clearest case of a name meaning different things. Its wine file lists eight municipalities, from Aggsbach to Weißenkirchen, and leaves out both Krems, which belongs to Kremstal, and Melk.[4] The same file describes the Wachau as mainly white-wine country, about 85% of its vineyards, with Grüner Veltliner and Riesling (Rheinriesling) as the main varieties, Riesling on the terraces' weathered primary rock and Grüner Veltliner on loess.[3] The Austrian Commission for UNESCO's World Heritage Wachau, by contrast, comprises 15 municipalities from Melk in the west to Krems in the east, and the Wachauer Marillenbrand file names 21 municipalities, Krems among them.[28][27] The apricot is covered in the Austrian food guide. XTOUR's reading is that "Wachau" on a wine label is the narrowest of the three.

The Weinviertel file says the designation may be used only for wines of the Grüner Veltliner variety with a pronounced fruity, spicy (peppery) character, and describes them as pale yellow to green-yellow, with no wood.[7] Wagram reaches the court district of Klosterneuburg, and Carnuntum shares its name with the Roman site but is defined as a wine area of the Bruck an der Leitha district and the Schwechat court district.[9][6]

Vienna: a city that is a wine region

The Wien PDO covers the whole Bundesland of Wien. Its file says the area makes mainly white wine and singles out the "Gemischter Satz", for which different grape varieties are planted together in one vineyard and processed together; it contrasts chalky soils in the west of the city with black-earth soils in the south.[11] Wiener Gemischter Satz has been a PDO of its own since 2020, the register shows, but it carries no summary file in the listing and XTOUR has not read its specification.[2] Both "Gemischter Satz" and "Heuriger" also appear among the traditional terms in the Wachau file.[3] The Heuriger as a place to drink wine is a separate subject: see the Viennese Heuriger explained.

Burgenland: overlapping names and two removed ones

The Burgenland file describes roughly equal shares of white and red wine and a large role for sweet Prädikat wines such as Trockenbeerenauslese and Eiswein.[13] Inside the state the files define Neusiedlersee as the whole district of Neusiedl am See, Leithaberg as fifteen named municipalities including Eisenstadt, Mörbisch, Oggau and Purbach, Mittelburgenland as Deutschkreutz, Horitschon, Lutzmannsburg and Neckenmarkt, and Eisenberg as the districts of Oberwart, Güssing and Jennersdorf.[18][17][16][15] Rosalia (2020) and Ruster Ausbruch (2021) are newer PDOs without a summary file in the listing; XTOUR has not read them.[2]

The register flags two older Burgenland names as removed: Neusiedlersee-Hügelland and Südburgenland, each with Official Journal publications from 2021.[2] Their 2011 files show why a reader may still meet them: Südburgenland's area is the same three districts as Eisenberg's, and Neusiedlersee-Hügelland's covered the Eisenstadt and Mattersburg districts and the free towns of Rust and Eisenstadt.[20][18][19] XTOUR has not read the 2021 acts and does not say why the names were removed.

Styria: three regional names

The Steiermark file says almost 70% of the state's vineyards grow white wine.[14] Inside it, Südsteiermark covers the Leibnitz district except the municipalities left of the Mur, and Weststeiermark the districts of Graz, Graz-Umgebung, Voitsberg and Deutschlandsberg, without the Graz-Umgebung municipalities east of the Mur.[23][22] The third, Vulkanland Steiermark, is a case of a name changing: its 2011 technical file still calls the designation "Süd-Oststeiermark" and gives an area of five districts plus the municipalities east of the Mur in Graz-Umgebung and Leibnitz.[21] The register lists 2024 publications for the name that XTOUR has not read, so it does not say whether the area changed with the name.[2]

What XTOUR does not tell you

XTOUR does not rate wines, name wineries or recommend vintages. It has not read the Austrian wine law, the DAC rules or the Austrian Wine Marketing Board's pages, so it does not explain which grape varieties or styles each DAC allows. The technical files it quotes date from 2011 and 2014; the register lists later amendments for many names that XTOUR has not read. Three XTOUR destinations appear in these files: Vienna, which the Wien PDO covers whole; Krems an der Donau, named in the Kremstal file; and Melk, which is outside the Wachau wine file's municipalities but inside the Niederösterreich PDO.[12][3][4][11] The Austria country page lists the rest.