Wines made from Sylvaner grapes of Wien
Discover the best wines made with Sylvaner as a single variety or as a blend of Wien.
The sylvaner is grown mainly in Germany and Alsace. The buds are somewhat cottony and the young leaves are green. The same applies to the ribbed branches. Once mature, the dominant colour is golden-green and small elliptical berries with small to medium-sized bunches can be seen. The ripe fruit is then adorned by five-lobed leaves. This variety is susceptible to chlorosis, gray mold, powdery mildew and mildew. It is also sensitive to frost and wind because of its long branches. It can be grown in any kind of soil, although it prefers stony, sandy and light soils. It is indeed moderately acidic and offers a complex set of aromas such as bitter almond, fruity and floral background. The taste has an excellent mixture of honey and candied or dried fruits.
Weinviertel DAC – whose name translates as "wine quarter" – is an appellation in Niederösterreich (Lower Austria). It is by far the largest Districtus Austriae Controllatus wine region in Austria. It was also the first Austrian wine region to be given that title, in 2002, with a DAC Reserve designation added in 2009. The designation applies only to white wines from the Grüner Veltliner Grape variety.
Starting with the 2021 vintage, non-late harvest Alsace Riesling must be ‘dry’, as defined by EU regulations, according to a proposed decree agreed by a two-thirds majority of the Alsace Winegrowers’ Association (AVA). Winemakers backed the plan at a vote in Colmar last week, although it requires approval from France’s appellation body, INAO. The move comes in addition to the introduction of a standardised way of communicating sweetness levels on Alsace AOC still wines. As per EU rul ...
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 ...
I’m fortunate enough to taste a fair amount of fine wine each year and I have come to the conclusion that each of us is forced to build our own stylistic preferences, regardless of the appellation or classification of a wine. Instead of simply choosing a bottle of Bordeaux over Barolo, for example, most of us probably aim to drink each on the right occasion and, in doing so, carve out our individual preferences for these wines. My personal bias – which I must confess, to be fair and transp ...