Barrels, Bottles and Bouquets – Austria's Precious Wines

What makes Austria's wine so special, and what role do individual winegrowers play?

The first episode "World-Class City, World-Class Wines" focuses on the wine region around Austria's capital, Vienna.

The series investigates the 16 different wine regions that are located in Lower Austria, the Burgenland, Styria and Vienna. 11 Episodes deal with these provinces, while the twelfth looks at the "Bergland" or "mountain country" regions in Austria's five non-traditional wine-producing provinces. Wine in the mountains? Vines in the Alps? Global warming has made it possible to grow grapes in alpine valleys that were previously too cold for wine to flourish...

"Barrels, Bottles and Bouquets" investigates the landscapes and the natural conditions that have an impact on the individual wine regions and define the flavours present in a glass of Veltliner from the Kamp valley, Gumpoldskirchen's Zierfandler or an Eisenberg Blaufränkisch. Why are terraces used primarily in the Wachau? How does the loess soil of the Wagram region or the rolling hill landscape of southern Styria influence the wine from these regions? How useful or damaging can water from lakes, rivers or rainfall be? And how is it possible to produce quality wines in a city of millions like Vienna? These questions, and others, are answered by the people who work with wine every day and are therefore experts - the winegrowers themselves.

A co-production of Interspot Film and the ORF, funded by Fernsehfonds Austria, Filmförderung Niederösterreich, Cinestyria and Filmfonds Wien, in association with the Austrian Wine Marketing Board and other partners.