Austrian Erste Lagen new releases: Top wines reviewed

The Erste Lagen is a selection of wines from high-quality vineyards chosen by the members of the Österreichische Traditionsweingüter. This is a private growers’ association, modelled on Germany’s long-established VDP group, that over recent decades has created a vineyard classification to single out top growths (Grosses Gewächs). Until this year the OTW was focused solely on Lower Austria and its vineyards.

Like the VDP classification, the Erste Lagen have no official status, and only members of the OTW may use the logo that identifies a top site. Few would dispute that the members have made a conscientious effort to seek out the best sites, although there is always a slight suspicion that it may be tempting to reward one’s own favoured vineyard at the expense of some neighbours’.Each year the OTW presents Erste Lage wines for the press and for sommeliers to taste and assess.

The ultimate goal will be to isolate from the Erste Lagen the Grosse Lagen, roughly translatable as Grands Crus. This selection is still a work in progress and will inevitably be contentious. Tasters are requested to score each wine so as to indicate which sites appear to perform best across the board. As a broad generalisation, sites with loess or loam soils are ideal for Grüner Veltliner, while sites with primary rock are ideal for Riesling. But of course it’s not a clear-cut rule.

At the same time the project aims to map vineyards within each village, since in the past some boundaries between sites were never precisely defined. The designation of Erste Lage (and eventually Grosse Lage) status will require some official delineation of where one site ends and another begins. For OTW chairman Michael Moosbrugger and other promoters of Erste Lagen, this is a crucial aspect of the project. The 2019 event proved of particularly interest as for the first time wines from newly classified vineyards in Vienna and in the nearby Carnuntum region were presented for tasting.

Scroll down to see the top scoring Erste Lage recommendations

See the top 40 wines tasted here

The Erste Lage classification as a whole runs in parallel with the official DAC system, which seeks to identify the most representative varieties from each Austrian wine region. Thus in Wagram, the DAC is only granted to wines from Riesling or Grüner Veltliner, and thus there is no DAC for another admired local variety, Roter Veltliner. The same is true of Erste Lagen, which recognises the same two varieties.

But the systems do differ. DAC focuses on typicity and stylistic criteria, and, indeed, quality, whereas the Erste Lagen reward soil, elevation, and so forth. Equally important, the Erste Lage is a private system that inevitably merges with a marketing strategy.

The wines shown at the Schloss Grafenegg tasting event were from 2018 in the case of white wines (and a few 2017s), and 2017 for the Carnuntum reds. 2017 was a fine vintage for red wines, with a hot summer and some refreshing rainfall in September that helped the grapes to ripen fully. Moreover, yields were generous.

2018 was more problematical for white grapes, as an extremely hot dry summer led to the earliest harvest in memory. For growers the crucial decision was when to harvest. Pick too early and there could be some greenness. Pick too late, and acidities could have plummeted. Nonetheless many excellent wines were made, alongside wines that are decidedly flabby and lack persistence. As in 2003, the most prestigious sites did not necessarily produce the best wines in 2018, as their ideal exposition could be too much of a good thing in a torrid year.

For these vintages an amendment to the Austrian wine law requires that single vineyards be identified by the term ‘Ried’, as in ‘Ried Gaisberg’. This is to ensure there is no confusion with a fantasy name such as ‘Titan’ or ‘Lyra’.

Riesling & Grüner Veltliner: Stephen’s top Erste Lagen picks

See the top 40 wines tasted here