Winemonger.com

•Get a Primer:

If you are serious about traveling to Austria, there are great sites you should consult first to cover the basics of Austria’s history, people and attractions. Probably the best place to start is the site of the Austrian Tourist Office.

•When to Go:

April and October are the bookends to the warm season. Starting in September, wineries tend to be very busy with their harvest. If you like some face time with the winemaker, spring and early summer are best. If, on the other hand, you want to see the vineyards bursting with beautiful colors, October is usually best. Avoid August, as many wineries shut down for “Betriebsurlaub” (vacation).

•Getting There:

Fly via Frankfurt or Munich to keep the travel time to a minimum. Austrian Airlines will take you there from the West Coast in about 16 hours, and they will get you in the mood with Mozart and Strauss playing softly in the background as they set your Austrian food down on your tray table. As with travel to any European country, jet lag is definitely an issue. Try to start shifting your schedule before you leave or you will be up at night and your afternoons will be yawning contests.

•Getting Around: You don’t want to spend your time reading maps and navigating country roads. Instead try to get a rental car with a navigation system through your travel agent or autoeurope. If you can afford it, there are also some chauffeur services available which is an especially good idea if you have a day of wine tasting planned. If you need help with finding one, send us a note.

•Planning your trip:

Austria is small. If you space out on the Autobahn you’ll find yourself in some other country in no time. From Vienna it will take 1.5 hours to the Wachau, 1 hour to Burgenland and 2 hours to Styria. If you are the flexible kind, you might allow yourself an open travel route to dodge bad weather. As in, if the weather in Burgenland is bad, head for Styria. If Styria is getting hit by a storm, venture to the Wachau.

•Accommodations: You will find that many wineries offer guest rooms with breakfast. If you want to stay at one of our wineries, send us a note and we will respond with contact information.

•Visiting Wineries:

You don’t need to set up tastings in advance. Once you are in a wine town like Rust, Spitz or on the Styrian Wine Road (”Weinstrasse”) you can walk from winery to winery where you’ll receive a warm welcome in the tasting room, Buschenschank (Styria) or Heuriger (Wachau). If you are on a mission to visit the best vintners in Austria, you will need to work out a schedule and call the wineries to make sure they are able to meet you and taste you through their wines. To do so, obtain the Falstaff wine guide or the abridged English version of the same book. You can also order it online at the publisher’s site.
Note: The German version of the same guide contains more wineries and also those that are not imported into the US.


More and more wineries have fancy tasting rooms. Feiler Artinger just updated theirs and the Wenzel Winery even sports a wine cellar with a wine history of Rust exhibition. If you are nice, vintner Michael Wenzel or his very entertaining father might give you the tour.

•Eating & Drinking

Seek out Heuriger and similar drinking establishments and forget about points for a while. If you hate hiking, do it anyway. You will find that the Spritzers you down on the top of a mountain in the Wachau or Styria will fetch the elusive personal 100 points time and again.

Be prepared to eat French Laundry fair in a beergarden type setting. Our favorite: Laubenhof in Unterloiben which is run by the famous and amazing Knoll Winery. The garden setting is just gorgeous, the food top notch yet unpretentious, and the wine is amongst the very best in Austria. If you want a fancy experience, the Schlosshotel Dürnstein (Relais & Château) in the Wachau and the Taubenkogel Restaurant in Burgenland (also Relais & Château) are hard to beat by anyone’s standards. If you are truly treating yourself, you can also book a room at either place. Spending a few days in the Wachau? Try Landhaus Bacher. Excellent food by an excellent and very nice chef (that would be Liesl Wagner-Bachner)

Have a good trip and if you have some travel tips of your own, go ahead and post them here in our comments section.