Read Day 1, Day 2 and Day 3 and then come read about our fabulously wonderful last day in Austria. It began with a visit to The Esterházy Palace.


The palace is a visual treat. Palace Esterházy's cellars go all the way back the 17th century. The wine producing here has now moved to a classy facility today, but the palace is still home to the largest wine museum of the country. It houses 700 exhibits, including the largest preserved wine barrel of the country and the oldest Baumpresse (an ancient Austrian basket wine press) in Burgenland. You can read my article on Austrian wines in the Huffington Post-India to get a better idea.

A brilliant guided tour around the palace saw us delve into its history, its gradual growth and construction and the several influences with each passing century. In fact, the royalty that resided here were greatly taken up Chinese artefacts and you will see a lot of these influences around.


The Palace also has a lovely little chapel which still houses the pipe organs of centuries ago. While these pipe organs were still functional till a while ago, the Palace authorities decided to record its music and play it during public visits, which you can see in the video below.



The underground museum of the ancient wine related artefacts will keep you engrossed as will the amazing curios and wine shop at the end of the tour. This time round, I made sure I was the first one out and on the bus! Click on the image below for some great pictures of the Palace!





 The excessive wine over the 4 days got to most of us in the group and we just had to head out for some beer. After the gala at the palace, few places remained open and we managed to get a table for 8 for all of 45 minutes at the Salm Brau

The next day I had to leave the hotel early in the morning, another thing I plan to change in case I attend this Summit again. We were provided with City Airport Train tickets that would take us from the Wien Mitte station in Vienna, directly to the airport in 16 minutes flat. The Wien Mitte station is easily accessible from across Vienna. What I particularly loved was the fact that you could check in your luggage at the Wien Mitte train terminal and forget about it till your destination. 


Austria was a fabulous four days and I have written quite a few stories from the experience of them all. You can read them at the links below. Additionally do click on the image above for some lovely images of Vienna.

I flew back to Bangalore with Lufthansa via Vienna. The check in for Bangalore was extremely harried since the flight seemed to have been overbooked. A happy exchange of seats saw me find a place in the premium economy section with, ironically, an empty seat next to me.

Disclaimer: This trip to Austria was sponsored by AWB. The views expressed are personal and unbiased

Day 3 of my trip to the Austrian Wine Summit (Day 1 and Day 2) saw us leave the Arte Krems hotel and head out to experience a Kellargasse - cellar street in Wagram. This excerpt is the basic concept of a Kellargasse and is from my article on Austrian wines that appeared in the Food Lovers Magazine

In many Austrian wine-growing regions, traditional wine cellars are situated outside town centres. These villages have multi-storeyed homes without chimneys spread over long distances. They are described as Kellerbergs or cellar hills. These are made up of a press house, (Kellarhals) and underground tunnels that are often interlinked through a labyrinth of passageways. These are small wineries, with vineyards that have no discernable boundaries except those adhered to in good faith. The most famous Austrian Kellergassen are in the Weinviertel, on the Wagram, in the wine-growing region of Carnuntum and in the Burgenland. These little vineyards provide a more intimate experience of wine.




At the Kellargasse, Feuersbrunn am Wagram, I found out that vintners have adopted an interesting project since 2014. To keep bugs from depositing larvae on the vines, vintners now tie a red ribbon, soaked in pheromones at regular intervals in the vineyard. While these work at attracting male butterflies, the lack of a female repels them and prevents larval deposits. The pheromones have been scientifically tested to ensure that they do not harm crops in any way. The success of this project has been phenomenal and now more and more vintners are participating in the project.

The great part about this experience is that you can take picturesque walk down the street, stop at a small family-run boutique wine outlet of your choice, interact with the vintners, understand their crop and grape treatment and then indulge in some great wines. An experience that you would definitely want wine tour or not!

Disclaimer: This trip to Austria was sponsored by AWB. The views expressed are personal and unbiased

In case you have landed here directly, you may want to read Day 1 of my Austria Visit..After the long flights and a lovely first day in Vienna, it was time to get to business. Falkensteiner Hotel Am Schottenfeld the first hotel we stayed at had a pretty decent buffet breakfast spread with a lot of options in cereals, fruits, processed meats and breads. After packing it in for the morning, our first stop for the day was at  Schloss Schrattenthal


Standing since 1432, Schloss Schrattenthal is one of the many palaces that dots Vienna's skyline. It has some gorgeous towers on which you can gaze over the vineyards around the castle. This palace was the setting for the introductory talk, a wine tasting session and a fun cook-your-own-schnitzel lunch on Day 1.

Passed down through different hands over time, the castle has now been with the Schubert family for 80 years. They have painstakingly restored large parts of the palace on their own to make it the beauty that it is today. Three generations of the family live at the palace and it is given out as a venue as well as for visitors who may like to stay. The Schuberts make for lovely hosts and joined our table for the lovely Wiener schnitzel lunch we made ourselves. The senior couple will regale you with stories of their backpacking trip in North India in the 70s and will tell you have their family have restored the palace with single minded dedication, with quite a bit of the work done with their own hands, especially the landscaping!

Schloss Schrattenthal has landscaping that is simplistic and in keeping with the surrounding green lushness. It also has stone towers with rickety wooden steps going all the way to the top giving you a great 360 degree view of the space and all the vineyards around. Though the family serves wine, they have long since stopped producing their own label.