Excerpted from a Press Release by Austrian Wine
The origins of Austrian wine, including single vineyards (Rieden), can now be seen at a glance. Following three years of groundwork, the Austrian Wine Marketing Board (Austrian Wine) launched a digital atlas of wine origins at austrianvineyards.com on 17 June 2021. This is also the world’s first digital wine atlas covering an entire wine-producing country.
Where does the Austrian wine in my glass come from? Austrianvineyards.com now provides the answer to this question – with unprecedented simplicity and precision. This site brings together all of Austria’s legally defined wine origins on a single interactive map – from the bottom level, where a wine’s origin is simply defined as being Austrian, through to the next levels of the country’s 27 winegrowing regions and 458 winegrowing municipalities, to the top level of origin, where wines originate from one of the highly revered single vineyards (Rieden), of which there are more than 4,300 in Austria.
DETAILED INFORMATION ABOUT MORE THAN 4,300 SINGLE VINEYARDS
The website provides descriptions and data about all levels of origin – the smaller the designated origin, the more detailed the information. Every single vineyard (Ried) description contains information about the area under vine, elevation, incline, orientation, average temperature, precipitation and sunshine hours, for example, which are key parameters for determining the quality and characteristic flavour of a wine.
The Steiermark (Styria) single vineyards are still in the process of being officially defined, but they are likely to be added to the platform by the end of this year. Austrianvineyards.com will be continually updated to reflect the latest legal developments within the wine industry.
AN INTERNATIONAL BENCHMARK – ALSO AVAILABLE IN PRINTED FORMAT
Alongside the digital version, printed versions of the new single-vineyard maps of all Austrian winegrowing regions are also now available. The level of details and cartographic standards are said to represent a milestone in the Austrian wine industry.
The website austrianvineyards.com, as well as the printed maps, are the result of three years of intense collaboration with the Department of Geography and Regional Research at the University of Vienna and the firm Plan+Land.
The Austrian term for a single vineyard is “Ried” (plural “Rieden”). The word “Ried” on the label of an Austrian wine indicates that the wine comes from a legally defined single vineyard.
