Wines made from Riesling grapes of Bad Dürkheim

With the signing off by the Austrian minister of agriculture, sustainability and tourism, Elisabeth Köstinger, Wagram becomes Austria’s seventeenth DAC (Districtus Austriae Controllatus), following Wachau and Ruster Ausbruch in 2020, and Carnutum in October 2019. ‘This was not an easy nut for the winemakers of the Wagram region to crack,’ said Chris Yorke, CEO of the Austrian wine marketing board, Austrian Wine, ‘but after comprehensive discussions and much thought, the Wagram ...

Christmas, famously, is not about religion any more. But as a Decanter reader, you’ll also know that it’s not about giving, family or food either. No, it’s about drink. The one time of year when we get to open the good stuff without anyone questioning what we’re doing. And of course, there’s no shortage of advice as to what form those bottles should take. Every year, hacks in newspapers, magazines and websites tell us how to make the big day go with a bang. But these don’t correspond with the re ...

I’d like to say we took advantage of the lockdown and its related commotion to do a stock-take, explore new avenues, turn over intriguing stones, widen and deepen our drinking, taking careful notes as we went. Sadly, no. I won’t say we got stuck in a rut, but we did tend to stick with comfort wines – and “comfort”, in our case, means familiar. Regular readers of this quarterly column can probably guess the labels on the resulting empties. We have a wider range of comfort foods, I’m afraid, than ...