Traisental | Château Monty

Traisental is a region in in Lower Austria or Niederösterreich in Austria. See also Traisental DAC. Traisental means Valley of the Traisen, here with vineyards on both sides of the river, north of St Pölten in the picturesque far south of Traisental and extending to the Danube (Donau) where the latter flows into the Donauland (Danube-land) region. Wine and ‘Heuriger’ villages (with traditional Buschenschanken wine taverns) are popular in Traisental.

History: Grape pips, dating to the Bronze Age, well before any Roman influence, were discovered and confirm an ancient form of viticulture in the region.

Vineyard area: 2015 790ha.

Geology: The most striking geological element is coarse, calcareous-dolomitic gravels, which were transported here by the ancient Traisen River, before about 16 million years ago, derived from the uplifting Calcareous Alps and deposited within a delta of the Paratethys Sea. The gravels have mainly been consolidated to conglomerates and occur especially on the elevated areas of the western slopes of the valley. On the right side of the valley, the older, so-called Oncophora-Beds dominate, which are now referred to as the Traisen Formation. These consist of calcareous, more or less silty and sometimes weakly indurated sands, within which the name-giving marine mollusc shell “oncophora” is found; locally conglomerates are intercalated within the sands. However, the two units together constitute only about twenty percent of the subsurface of the vineyard soils.

The vast majority of the vineyards are on loess, which on the left slopes of the valley is often penetrated by truncated conglomerate components.

In the westernmost part of the wine growing area the crystalline basement of the Dunkelstein Forest emerges as light-coloured, hard granulites, upon which the acidic vineyard soils are established, if loess was not deposited above the granulite.

Bibliography

Wines of Austria.