2017 Middle Burgenland/Mittelburgenland dry "Hexenberg", Burgenland, Austria
The province of Burgenland with the capital Eisenstadt is located in the very east of Austria. It borders Slovakia in the north, Hungary in the east, Slovenia in the south for a few kilometres and the two Austrian provinces of Lower Austria and Styria in the west. Wine-growing has been of great importance here for at least two and a half millennia, which is underlined by the regional variation of the historian Johannes Aventinus (1477-1534)'s saying "Extra Pannoniam non es vita; si est vita, non est ita" (You cannot live outside Pannonia; if you can live, you cannot live like here)....
In Austria, viticulture has been practised since the time of settlement by the Celts almost 3,000 years ago. The Burgenland municipality of Zagersdorf and the Lower Austrian municipality of Stillfried in the Weinviertel are considered the oldest wine-growing communities in Austria. In both places, grape seeds were found that date back to 700 and 900 BC respectively and can clearly be assigned to the species Vitis vinifera. The lifting of the ban on planting vines outside Italy by Emperor Domitian (51-96) by Emperor Probus (232-282) had a positive effect on viticulture. This...
The red grape variety comes from France. The name is probably derived from the French word for blackbird (merle), because these birds like to nibble on the very sweet berries when fully ripe. However, the name can also be an allusion to the black-blue colouring of the berries similar to that of the bird. There are more than 60 synonyms, which testify the worldwide distribution. The most important are Alicante Noir, Begney, Bigney, Bigney Rouge, Bini, Black Alicante, Blue Merlot, Bordò, Cabernet del Cleto, Crabutet, Crabutet Noir, Crabutet Noir Merlau, Hebigney, Higney, Médoc Noir, Merlau, Merlot Black, Merlot Blue, Merlot Crni,...
