Question re Austrian vintages

M. Pronay will have more first hand experience than I with the vintages of the 90's, but I can tell you a few highlight vintages from those I have tasted:

1999 was excellent for the Wachau. If you can pick up any of these Gruner Veltliner's, do it. Kamptal enjoyed a good vintage that year as well, but not quite at the level of what is generally seen from the Wachau vintners. 1997 was also very good for the Wachau, and then 1990. There were other fine vintages in between (1995 is a good example), but '90, '97, & '99 have stood out for me. On the downside, I have heard more than once that 1996 for the Wachau was terrible, and 1991 not much better.

For sweet wines from the Burgenland, look for wines from the knockout

1995 vintage. I am also a fan of the 1999 sweeties as well (particularly a few Ruster Ausbruch's that I have tried)

I concur with Mark about the quality of 1997 Styrian wines.

e.

Thanks for the informative post (and thanks to Emily too). Much appreciated!

Yes, Emily. Austria seems to be one of the few locations in Europe that made appealing white wines in '03. It's not across the board, of course (preaching to the choir, I know) but the success/failure ratio in Austria seems to be much higher than elsewhere.

Mark Lipton

p.s. I hope parenthood is treating you well.

It is! Thanks for asking. Lotte is almost two (I have no idea how that can be true) and speaks German, but can understand English too. Which is a good thing, as I don't speak German at all (yet). We're moving the clan up north to the Bay Area- the winemonger wines are already in about 100 restaurants here in Southern California, so it's time to take on the rest of the state. We're already on the list at The Slanted Door, which seems a good omen. If any of you are in the area, please give a shout out & I'll pull the corks on some of our secret stash.

Congratulations- both on the happiness of parenthood, and getting on Slanted Door list- that's great exposure!

I hope you can work out the distributor issues to get on some NYC lists!

best, Dale PS I confess to finding it amusing that an Austrian wine importer doesn't speak German. :)

That is an interesting comment. I assume the Slanted Door is the large Vietnamese restaurant on Powell?

Haven't been,so I don't know address, but Slanted Door is #1 on my Bay Area wish list. It is for lack of a better word a Vietnamese fusion restaurant. Betsy has made some Charles Phan recipes. And the wine list is famous. Many of my NYC friends regard it as a neccessary part of the SF experience, I hope to try myself soon!

A look at the very interesting list:

Slanted Door has changed locations at least twice, but is currently housed near the Embarcadero in the Ferry building. They are a very popular dining option in SF but are famous among the winegeek set because of the wine list assembled by Mark Ellenbogen, their wine buyer. He has made waves because of his refusal to put wines on his list that are high in alcohol or that don't pair well with the Viet-fusion food served in SD. As a result, there are very few CA wines on the list. Both the food and wine selection are well worth a visit IMO.

Mark Lipton

Working with Mark Ellenbogen has been great. His palate is remarkable- and it is true that he is adamant about the wines being on the list to serve the food, not to serve as a boasting sheet. As an example, Federspiel wines often win out over Smaragd (the list might look a little short on Federspiels right now- the containers with the

2006's are hitting the ports as we speak...and oh what a vintage it is!)

Dale- I speak some "wine German", and most of our vintners speak some English, but there's always my partner (AKA husband) who can step in to translate in a pinch! ;)