Visit Date: 12th-13th April 2004
When you traditionally think of Austria, you think of things such as Mozart, skiing or even Arnold Schwarzenegger…but do you think of cider/perry? Well, until a few months ago I never even known there was a cider or perry culture there. Thankfully I’ve since discovered the World’s Best Cider book by Bill Bradshaw & Pete Brown and that has opened my eyes up to cider culture from around the world. Anyway, after reading the book I didn’t think I’d have a chance to visit there so soon as I did.
Earlier this month, out of the blue, I got an email from Wine & Partners (Drinks PR company in Austria) inviting me over for a visit to the Salon des Mostes festival held in the Mostviertel (cider quarter) region in Lower Austria. I pondered on the idea of visiting for a while and then just thought sod it and went and did it! Flights and hotel was booked and off I went for another trip into the unknown.
I landed on the Saturday morning in Vienna and met with wine journalist Jørgen la Cour-Harbo, who had flown over from Denmark to report on the festival for his own La Cour communications company. We drove off to meet the guys from Wine & Partners (Brigitte, Daniela & Agnes) in the heart of Vienna and then off to the Mostviertel region.
Whilst driving there, you drive through the heart of the countryside on a motorway, with the cider/perry trees coming into full blossom around you. The sceneries on the motorway were just so picturesque and I can’t say I really see that happen a lot over here. I know if someone proposed that now you would have the greens fight this tooth and nail! Anyway, after nearly 2 hours driving we got to our first cider producer in the shape of Mostbaron Bernhard Datzberger/Seppelbauer.
Producer Visit 1 – Mostbaron Bernhard Datzberger/Seppelbauer
This producer is run by the Datzberger family (Bernhard & Brigitte; Their 3 kids Harald, Jürgen & Tanja) and have been in the cider producing game since 1987. They make around 60-70, 000 litres of cider/perry a year and make cider around 3 times per year. From what I could gather is they don’t ferment all their juice in September/October when it is picked, but also store some juice in stainless steel reserve tanks (where I believe sulphites added to stop fermentation and yeasts added at later time when necessary) where they can then ferment it at a later date and therefore can create cider/perry all year round. If the fruit is of low sugar, then they do chapitilise (add sugar prior to fermentation), though this hasn’t been needed to be done lately. The main thing they like to experiment with in their cider is the acidity and tannins, whilst the alcohol ABV is not their biggest concern. They said all fruit is picked by hand, it is then crushed/mashed and then pressed in a horizontal cider press. Once this has been done it is transferred to 2, 000-3, 000 litre stainless steel tanks to ferment.
