Austrian appellation changes?

Salut/Hi John Gunn,

le/on Wed, 09 Jul 2003 04:06:55 GMT, tu disais/you said:-

Is it possible that you're thinking about changes in _German_ wine naming law? Having boxed themselves into a total mess in 1971, they have spent the last 30 years trying to work out how to undo it without giving the appearance of doing so. One perceived need was to enable people to know whether a wine was good or not, so they have created a sort of "Grand Cru" status, for top sites. I saw some of the proposals for these new top end appellations while in Bordeaux, They can have one of three names depending upon which state the wine comes from. Yes, folks, this is "simplifying" things German style. The wines were stellar.

There was a blurb in WS that they will change it to a more consumer friendly version. It says the two main factors will be varietal and quality.

John Gunn wrote in news:Xns93B4AE1B59327johnlgunnqwestnetnos@207.225.159.8:

Hi John, good question! The grape is selected by a wine comitee, composed of producers and negociants from the region. Actually, it is also possible to designate more than one DAC grape (but this kind of destroys the whole concept).

How this will be handled e.g. in the Wachau is beyond me. But I guess the top producers don't care a lot about the DAC. They have (especially in the Wachau) their well established quality categories.

Regards, Robert