Wines from Vienna: The Art of the Unpredictable

With their vineyards overlooking the city and the influence of the Danube River, the Viennese continue with their age-old traditions, fermenting more than one variety at a time to propose a complex and deep blend.

The sensuous lines of painter Gustav Klimt trace the silhouette of an imperial, distinguished city that has remained virtually unaffected by occupations and wars. Vienna is celebrating the 150th anniversary of the birth of one of its greatest artists with a retrospective at the Belvedere Museum that awakens our senses and portrays the denuded truth of a painter who loved and reinvented female beauty, creating new shapes in a scenario where one can easily be awestruck.

The Austrian capital exudes painting, music and wine.

In a landscape dominated by monumental constructions, cafés and restaurants, museums and art galleries, gardens and parks, tramways that run along a refined urban ring and carriages that take us back to aristocratic times, and where good life was often synonymous with excesses, the Vienna people park their latest German cars, take their well-trained pets for a walk, pedal along the hundreds of kilometers of bikeways and push the strollers of their future citizens.

During the Spring, an inviting season for youths to shed their coats as if they were posing for Klimt himself, the city blooms and toasts to a new beginning. Bar terraces, which sprawl around the imposing gothic cathedral, are filled with customers who haste to drink their Grüner Veltliner. The famous Sacher and Demel cafés, which fiercely compete for the best apple Strudel, receive legions of curious customers armed with forks and cameras. The restaurants of the new Viennese culinary scene like Vestibül located in the foyer of the Burgtheater or people’s theater open the asparagus season, dressing the spears with trendy textures and colors.

The only ones to suffer are ticket sellers who, dressed like Mozart, have to withstand the heat under their wigs.

In Vienna wine occupies the center stage. Wine glasses clearly outnumber beer mugs and pitchers. Winebars have replaced the traditional pubs called heurigers and mushroom everywhere in the city. Among them we can cite Zum Schwarzen Kameel, with its friendly service and wide selection of local wines; the classy Meinl’s Weinbar on Naglergasse; 3-Hacken-Magazine and its glorious selection of hams; the hidden treasure of Vis-à-vis on a narrow central street; the imposing cellar of Palais Coburg and its 60,000 bottles that include very rare European vintages; and the Wein & Co stores that have become hip bistros where wines from all continents can be appreciated.