2021 was a vintage with perfect grapes in all Austrian wine regions, reports the Austrian Wine Marketing Board. A warm and beautiful autumn gave balanced and elegant white wines and powerful reds. The volume was 2.4 million hectolitres, which is an average harvest for Austria.
The red wines are gaining ground, but Austria is still a typical white wine country. The vineyard area reached 44,913 hectares in 2021, of which 30,300 hectares, i.e., almost 70%, is white grape varieties.
The white and now quite famous grüner veltliner is planted on 32.6% of the surface. Grape number two, the red zweigelt, has 13.9%. Other important varieties are welschriesling and blaufränkisch. Austria is a small country, and the vineyards are all in the eastern part of the country.
But despite this somewhat limited area, there is a lot of variation in both climate and viticultural conditions, which you will notice when you drink the wines.
Read more: Austrian Wine
