Top 100 sparkling wines of Westschweiz

Discover the top 100 best sparkling wines of Westschweiz as well as the best winemakers in the region. Explore the varietals of the sparkling wines that are popular of Westschweiz and the best vintages to taste in this region.

Discovering the wine region of Westschweiz

Steiermark">Weststeiermark DAC (Western Styria) or Schilcherland is a wine producing region in southern Austria. It is closely associated with Schilcher, a unique rosé wine made exclusively from the indigenous Blauer Wildbacher Grape variety (easily the region's most planted variety). In 2017 the area was re-classified as Austria's tenth Districtus Austriae Controllatus appellation. Schilcher wine Along with Vienna's Gemischter Satz and Thermenregion's Gumpoldskirchen wines, the Schilcher rosé is an example of a truly regional wine style that falls outside of the usual image of Austrian wine.

Admired for both its racy fruit-forward charm and its pleasantly AggressiveAcidity, Schilcher is considered to be a significantly Terroir driven wine, taking on Spicy, vegetal characters in the right soils. The style dates back to the 16th Century or so, and authentic Schilcher wine must carry the white horse emblem of the Lipizzaner stallions bred in Weststeiermark for the Spanish Riding School in Vienna. The Weststeiermark DAC In addition to Schilcher, red wines made from Blauer Wildbacher grapes demonstrate the region's ability to produce Rich, Full bodied red wines. DAC wines may also be made from Sauvignon Blanc, Welschriesling and around half a dozen other white grape varieties.

Wines which fall outside the DAC rules are labelled as Steiermark. As with around half of the other DACs, Weststeiermark DAC wine labels may also feature a municipality, or a single vineyard on the label. 85 percent of the fruit must come from the stated location. This only applies to Schilcher wines, and Sauvignon Blanc.

News from the vineyard of Westschweiz

Walls: Domaine Alain Voge’s evolution in 10 wines

Some Cornas estates, like Domaine Clape, feel as ancient and unchanging as the granite hills themselves. Others, like Domaine Alain Voge, go through periods of flux. When this is due to vineyards being ripped out, bought or sold, then the whole profile of an estate can be altered. That’s not the case at Voge. Instead, it’s due to the coming and going of people and the unavoidable change that entails. I visited Lionel Fraisse, the current managing director at Domaine Alain Voge, to taste a select ...

Coming Soon: The Decanter Wine Club

The Decanter team and our expert contributors are lucky enough to discover and taste some of the world’s finest and most intriguing wines from across the globe every year, many of which are notoriously difficult to find. To help our readers get their hands on our top-rated wines, we are launching a wine club – the Decanter Wine Club – to help bring some of the very best directly to your doorstep.  As part of this exciting new initiative, which will initially be available to our ...

Wine lover: The climate needs you!

Kimberly Nicholas PhD (@KA_Nicholas) is a sustainability scientist at Lund University, and author of Under the Sky We Make: How to Be Human in a Warming World  Our 2020 research found that how fast we succeed at stopping warming will determine how much of the wine-growing regions and their characteristic varieties we love will remain in our lifetimes.  Changing to warmer-climate varieties can help limit losses, but there are limits to adaptation.  An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. ...

The best wines of Westschweiz in other styles