They call it Lower Austria, but Niederösterreich, above Vienna, is Austria’s northernmost and largest wine region. It has 26,732 hectares under vine, roughly 10,000 more than the whole of Croatia. Its five most widely planted varieties are Grüner Veltliner, which covers 49 percent of all Lower Austrian vineyards, Zweigelt (13 percent), Riesling, Welschriesling (Graševina) and Müller-Thurgau. About half of Lower Austria falls to the Weinviertel sub-region, which lies east and north as well as north-west of Vienna, and whose name means Wine Quarter. The proportions of varieties are almost identical to those of Lower Austria as a whole, and from the Weinviertel, on 26 February, the Austrian Hills winery — AUThill Wine – Weingut Weinwurm — is coming to Zagreb’s Westin hotel for the third Austrian Wine meets Croatia.
It was founded by the married couple Lisa and Georg Weinwurm. Their surname means wine worm, and they focus on dry wines from Grüner Veltliner, Chardonnay and Zweigelt. That last red variety was made in 1922 by professor Friedrich Zweigelt, crossing St. Laurent and Blaufränkisch at the then Viticulture School, today the Austrian Teaching and Research Centre for Viticulture and Pomology in Klosterneuburg. Wine is sunlight held together by water, say Lisa and Georg, adding that their wines represent the good Austrian life in a bottle.
Kremstal, meanwhile, is a tiny sub-region of Lower Austria with around 1,900 hectares of vineyards, of which 60 percent is given over to Grüner Veltliner. It is to that variety that the members of the Neustifter family, coming to Zagreb from Poysdorf, are devoted. The organic winery is run by Monika Neustifter and her father Karl, and they farm around 24 hectares of vineyards. They believe that healthy, living soils are the most important thing for exceptional wines, and in choosing varieties they valued the fruitiness, drinkability and character the wines can offer. Because of that character, they say their hearts beat for Grüner Veltliner. They are proud of their line of riper wines, Neustifter Grüner Veltliner Stockkultur, which since 2010 they bottle under a label bearing a drawing of a cellar cat, and which can age for up to a quarter of a century. In Zagreb, then, it will be high time to taste the first release.
And Kamptal is among the most celebrated of Austrian sub-regions. Grüner Veltliner and Zweigelt dominate the vineyards here too, but the area’s speciality is a devotion to sparkling wine. Dozens of wineries make it by the classic method of second fermentation in bottle, and one of the most famous is coming to Zagreb: Bründlmayer. They have Brut, Brut Rosé, Extra Brut and Blanc de Blancs sparklers with no stated vintage, plus a Blanc de Noirs 2019 Reserve and a Blanc de Blancs Grande Reserve 2014. Whatever Willi Bründlmayer and his team bring, whoever tastes it will not go wrong. Despite the great number of sparkling producers in Kamptal, none has specialised in bubbles alone. They simply pick early as much fruit as they need for the sparklers, complete the first fermentation and then turn to still wines. And here, too, Bründlmayer has plenty to show.
11 February 2026
Written by: Ivo Kozarčanin
