Burgenland is an Austrian Province and Anbaugebiet. Burgenland forms part of Weinland Österreich (one of Austria’s four main designated wine regions), together with the province of Niederösterreich.
Capital: Eisenstadt, capital of the federal state Burgenland.
Vineyard area: 13,100 ha.
Geography: Burgenland is the easternmost and least populous of Austria’s nine federal states (Bundeslander). Hans and Christine Nittnaus describe the Burgenland as ‘a vast, wide-open land. Not only because of its geographical proportions and cultural history, but also because of its diversity in wine.’
Located on the Hungarian border, southeast of Vienna, Burgenland consists of two statutory cities and seven rural districts, with a total of 171 municipalities. It is 166 km (103 mi) long from north to south but much narrower from west to east (5 km (3.1 mi) wide at Sieggraben). In wine terms Burgenland is Austria’s most important region for quality and volume along with Lower Austria (Niederösterreich). The northern part of the Burgenland region produces the best wines, sweet noble rot wines from around the shallow Lake Neusiedlersee in the Neusiedlersee region on the Hungarian border.
Terroir: The dense loam soils of Mittelburgenland and the area around Pöttelsdorf north of the Rosaliagebirge produce Blaufränkisch with particularly deep fruit and exceptional length. In Neusiedlersee-Hügelland, on the west shores of Neusiedlersee (Lake Neusiedl), the variety produces wines with expressive minerality and gripping tannins.
The soils on the east-facing slopes of the Leithagebirge (Leitha mountain range) consist principally of limestone and slate, providing a unique terroir for Blaufränkisch, yet also for complex white wines, especially Weißburgunder, Chardonnay and Grüner Veltliner. Dessert wines such as the legendary Ruster Ausbruch are also made.
The indigenous Blauer Zweigelt variety tends to dominate on the eastern shores of Neusiedlersee (Lake Neusiedl), where it produces powerful and juicy red wines, along with Blaufränkisch and St. Laurent, and the region of Seewinkel enjoys a unique microclimate, giving it the reputation as being one of the best places in the world to produce high quality noble sweet wines.
A high degree of humidity is naturally created by the large lake along with a countless number of smaller, shallow lakes around the vineyards, encouraging the development of noble rot (Botrytis cineria) during the autumn, enabling the production of Beerenauslese and Trockenbeerenauslese dessert wines. These wines are made from Chardonnay, Scheurebe, Traminer and Welschriesling, the latter having the potential to produce exceptional quality levels.
Effective from the 2005 vintage, Mittelburgenland DAC was the first wine in Burgenland to be given DAC status, and has since been joined by Leithaberg DAC and Eisenberg DAC. With the introduction of Neusiedlersee DAC in March 2012, the family of DAC’s in Burgenland is now completed.
Wine styles: Rich, full-bodied red wines come from the eastern region of Burgenland, under the influence of the hot, continental Pannonian climate. The Eisenberg in the most southerly part of Burgenland enjoys a complex soil structure and touch of refreshing climatic influences from neighbouring Steiermark, which provide ideal growing conditions for Blaufränkisch and other red wine varieties. The legendary Ruster Ausbruch – the internationally renowned, nobly sweet dessert wine – epitomises the strong identity of the region.
Wine towns: Donnerskirchen. | Eisenstadt. | Rust am See.
Sub-Regions: Neusiedlersee, Neusiedlersee-Hugelland, Mittelburgenland and Südburgenland.
Sub-regions, Qualitätswein: Burgenland. | Eisenberg DAC. | Leithaberg (incl. Rust) DAC. | Mittelburgenland DAC.
Burgenland: Organic & Biodynamic wine data: See Burgenland.
Climate: Full-bodied and rich red wines abound in the eastern region of Burgenland, under the influence of the hot, continental Pannonian climate.
Geology: ‘Burgenland was formed out of the Styrian and Pannonian Basins, as well as from the Eastern Alpine unit and the Penninicum. The Eastern Alpine unit consists of several strata of rock, where the lower level of the Penninic Nappes comes to light in tectonic windows. Deposits from the Quaternary Period are particularly widespread in the north of the region.
With a proportion of more than 60%, the coarsely grained sandy gravels of varying carbon content from the courses of the primeval Danube are dominant, in particular the Seewinkel gravels, which support about one third of all vineyards in the region. The Seewinkel gravels are covered only in places by fine sediments, while in the older terracesa loamy, often limestone-poor covering stratum can be widely observed.
A third of the vineyard area is growing on the basin’s Neogene sedimentary deposits. These vary greatly in composition, both in particle size distribution as well as carbon content and solidification: the range extends from partly silty, sometimes almost pure and limestone-free clays in Mittelburgenland to solid Leitha limestone.
Few vineyard parcels grow on hard rock, but one finds here a rich lithic spectrum that includes dolomite and limestone plus limestony schists, argillaceous schists and mica schists, along with gneisses, amphibolites and serpentinites (Source: Wines of Austria)
Burgenland’s Bulgarians: In 1938 Adolf Hitler signed an agreement with Bulgaria to send farm workers to the Third Reich. Many of those who returned to newly communist Bulgaria after 1945 were executed as collaborators. Others settled as refugees in Austria’s Burgenland, establishing farms which still exist today (Source: ‘Constant gardeners’, The Economist 29 Aug 2020, p.17).
Wineries
Certified Biodynamic: Weingut Weninger.
Bibliography
Hugh Johnson, Hugh Johnson’s Wine Companion (1991, 3rd edition, Mitchell Beazley), p.417.
Austrian Wine Marketing GmbH