Burgenland
Warm Pannonian
Austria's warm, red-wine state on the Hungarian border, with Blaufränkisch, Zweigelt and the lake-side sweet wines of the Neusiedlersee.
Overview
About Burgenland
Burgenland is the easternmost and warmest of Austria's wine states, on the edge of the Hungarian plain. Around the shallow Neusiedlersee, autumn mist encourages noble rot, and the area is famous for sweet wines, including the Ausbruch of Rust. Further inland, Mittelburgenland and the Eisenberg are the heartland of Blaufränkisch.
Zweigelt, St. Laurent and Blaufränkisch are the main reds, and dry whites are made in the Leithaberg hills.
Burgenland is marked on the map.
Austria
Shaded: Burgenland. Map units are states, provinces or départements, so a smaller place appears as the larger area that contains it.
The land
Climate & terroir
Climate
Warm Pannonian
Warm, dry summers and long autumns, tempered by the shallow lake, whose humid mornings help botrytis develop.
Terroir & soils
What the vines grow in
Limestone and schist in the Leithaberg and Eisenberg hills, clay and loam in Mittelburgenland, and sandy soils near the lake.
Go deeper
Rules, years & producers
Alois Kracher
Illmitz; a great name in Austrian sweet wines from the Neusiedlersee.
Moric
Neckenmarkt; Roland Velich's old-vine Blaufränkisch.
Umathum
Frauenkirchen; a leading estate for red wines and Zweigelt.
Weninger
Horitschon; a Mittelburgenland Blaufränkisch estate, with vineyards in Hungary.
What's grown here
Grapes
Each grape's page links back here.
Blaufränkisch
Mittelburgenland and Eisenberg make its most serious, peppery, age-worthy wines.
Neuburger
Small plantings for nutty, full-bodied whites.
Olaszrizling
Known as Welschriesling, and made into sparkling wines and botrytised sweet wines around Lake Neusiedl.
Saint Laurent
Perfumed, cherry-like reds; the Thermenregion is a stronghold.
St. Georgen
Known from a single surviving vine, not grown commercially.
Zweigelt
Fruity, everyday reds, and serious oak-aged versions in the Neusiedlersee area.