(by Manfred Klimek)
‘Born in Pain’ – that was the title of a ‘Tatort’ episode ten years ago starring Felix Murot (Ulrich Tukur), which centred less on murders (of which there are many in this ‘Tatort’) than on insight. A film about wounding and self-reflection. About what remains when one person falls and another gets back on their feet. Perhaps that is precisely what explains the difference between what I have seen in the Wachau over the last four days – and what is currently happening in the German wine industry.
Whilst unease is growing along the Moselle and the Rhine, complaints are growing louder, and winegrowers are talking of declines and falling sales, in Austria – in the Wachau, the Kamp Valley and the Kremstal – there is an almost brazen calm. Nobody is complaining. No one is talking about a crisis that threatens their livelihood – without, however, downplaying the situation. And this is not because there are no declines – here, too, the wine market is shrinking by around three per cent, as the managing director of one of the large Wachau cooperatives told me (and he was not referring to his own business). Yet whilst in Germany a three per cent decline is already regarded as apocalyptic, in Austria it is seen as part of the challenge of a future that is taking on new forms.
Over the last few days, I have also spoken to winegrowers in Germany, whose names I will not mention – as I have assured them of confidentiality. Some German Mosel estates, excellently managed, report a fall of up to eight per cent in exports to the US (alongside a domestic market under pressure, where bargains set the tone – that uniquely German tendency to prioritise the lowest price over better quality). For small German Moselle wine estates, declines in exports are a matter of survival. Two winemaking families I spoke to on the phone are seriously considering giving up – mainly because they see no way of weathering a prolonged sales crisis, which is, moreover, being fuelled morally by ‘sober’ and ‘dry’ campaigns.
In the Wachau, by contrast, a winegrower tells me with a quiet smile of an eight per cent increase – also to the US, despite tariffs. How did he manage it? With a clear strategy and without fretting over the present. He relies not only on his high-quality ‘Smaragd’ single-vineyard wines, but also on equally high-quality ‘terrace’ wines from a simpler ‘Smaragd’ category, which work well by the glass in top-tier restaurants across Europe and, above all, in the US. Not through price reductions, but through quality and visibility – and by offering customers the chance to try a glass for $7.90; in the top-end and trendy restaurants of major cities
I know of no example of this sort from Germany. There, the debate centres on whether wine must be offered more cheaply to hold onto the market. In the Wachau, they prefer to shift the focus, whilst maintaining the dignity of the product. This is not a marketing ploy, but an expression of an attitude.
Of course, the comparison isn’t entirely fair. The Wachau is small, dominated by white wine, and where red wine is produced in both regions, the sales problems are certainly greater – and more threatening. But the comparison between the Wachau and the Rheingau, or the Wachau and the Mosel, is legitimate. Pricing structures, grape varieties, export markets, the prestige of the vineyards – much is similar. Only the atmosphere is different.
One reason for this difference also lies with the co-operatives. In Austria, they are not a gathering place for mediocrity, but engines of renewal.
“We’re losing little to no market share, because we’re sharpening the edges of our wines,” the managing director of a cooperative told me – a man with a crystal-clear gaze and without a trace of self-pity.
They focus on quality, on diversification, on modern side projects – natural wine ranges, biodynamic lines, small-scale experiments that pick up on trends without succumbing to them. Non-alcoholic juices? No, that would water down the range and serve no purpose. Annual production: 2.5 million bottles.
In Germany, by contrast, many co-operatives are still stuck in the late nineties, a time when organic was seen as a threat and ‘natural’ as a risk. The dust of this mindset sits deep in their baggy clothes.
And then there’s the cultural difference: following the wine scandal of 1985, Austrian viticulture experienced a sort of rebirth. One thing is clear today: that era now elicits nothing more than a weary yawn from the protagonists of the time. Yet out of the shock grew an intellectualised approach to viticulture, a way of thinking in terms of interconnections that goes far beyond mere technique. A generation of winemakers emerged who had learnt that catastrophe can also be a catharsis. That one can only emerge from a crisis by confronting it – not by suppressing it. And that a modernisation of the associations is needed, a disruption that Germany, in its bureaucratic mania, has so far always avoided.
Germany did, admittedly, experience a wine scandal, but it led to little or no genuine cultural change. No new self-examination, no national wine identity that was renewed.
And that brings us to the third, and perhaps the decisive, difference: wine patriotism. In Austria, Austrians drink mainly Austrian wine. Not out of chauvinism, but as a matter of course. Wine is part of the national culture, just like the theatre, the ‘Schmäh’ and the dialect. And this sense of identity has been nurtured over decades – through positive, ongoing media coverage, through brand-building and through the creation of symbols.
Lenz Moser IV, for instance – to name but one example – a winemaker and marketing expert, has – through his collaboration with winemaker Markus Huber in the Traisental valley – created the New Chapter brand for a substantial yet approachable Grüner Veltliner, the impact of which extends beyond the wine itself – a symbol akin to Italy’s Tignanello or France’s Mouton-Cadet. Germany lacks something like this – with the exception of Ernie Loosen’s US Riesling. In Germany, people tend to deconstruct their own success before it can even be celebrated.
In the Wachau, I experienced a spirit that is almost impossible to plan for: a collective, fundamental belief that quality will prevail, that wine does not have to be cheap to be enjoyed. This confidence is no coincidence.
Perhaps that is the true lesson of the current crisis: that Germany has never before been forced to rethink things out of a sense of pain. The Wachau, the Kamptal, the Burgenland – they have learnt that crises sharpen awareness. They have developed the courage not to define themselves by what they lack, but by their attitude.
I believe that is why the Austrians do not complain. They know that wine is not sold out of panic or through panic. And they know that a wine’s value does not depend on the number of bottles, but on the clarity with which it is vinified.
Perhaps one day in Germany, too, there will once again be less explaining and more understanding. Perhaps the pain must come first for awareness to mature. But perhaps the current sense of resignation, which seems to be taking hold of the whole country, will prevail. And that would be the bitter end for such a significant wine-growing nation.