Austria's Finest: Domäne Wachau with Auguszta Cseri

Wine school founder Jimmy Smith recently visited Austria on a quest to discover some of the best Riesling and Grüner Veltliner that it has to offer. An anticipated trip to the Wachau, perhaps Austria's most acclaimed wine region, yielded some exciting results especially with the wine co-operative, Domäne Wachau. Their wines showed beautiful purity, balance, complexity and a real sense of place and were mightily impressive across the range. We'll taste through eight wines on the masterclass, with a few of the older bottles kindly supplied direct from the Domäne (including a 1977 Spätlese), so we are able to taste the wines with some bottle age. Do not miss!

Domäne Wachau

One of the iconic wine producers of the region, with its terraced vineyards of 400ha strung along the steep banks of the river on a patchwork of terroirs, providing endless nuance to the Gruner Veltliner and Riesling grapes that grow there. In 2020 the Wachau region was awarded DAC status, meaning the quality and style of wines from this outstanding region will be protected and formally recognised, allowing their most highly prized wines (many from Domäne Wachau) to shine even brighter.

Led by the winery director, Roman Horvath MW, and winemaker, Heinz Frischengruber, the workers at Domäne Wachau Winery cultivate one-third of the valley’s steep terraced vineyards. The winery owns plots in many of the region’s premium sites such as Singerriedel, Achleiten, Loibenberg and Kellerberg, which are included among Austria’s Grand Cru vineyard sites. Extreme winegrowing conditions and impressive diversity characterise the Wachau. Domäne Wachau masters these challenging conditions and focuses on producing premium white wines that are defined by their origin.

Wines on tasting

• Grüner Veltliner Federspiel Terrassen 2022

• Grüner Veltliner Federspiel Liebenberg 2021
• Riesling Federspiel Trenning 2022

• Grüner Veltliner Smaragd Achleiten 2021
• Riesling Smaragd Achleiten 2021

• MTX 2018
• Riesling Amphora 2019

• Grüner Veltliner Smaragd Achleiten Late Release 2016
• Grüner Veltliner Spätlese Himmelstiege 1977

Austrian Wine Series

As this tasting is part of three special evenings that we are hosting in Spring 2024, we are offering a 10% discount if you book 2 or more in one booking. Please use code Austria10 in the Promotional Code field when you check out.