I made a pilgrimage to Hautvillers. Champagne was born there, as anyone who loves sparkling wines as much as I do will know. Sooner or later, serious champagne aficionados will want to visit to pay their respects to the life’s work of Dom Perignon, a monk dedicated to studying and producing good local wines.
Champagne can only come from Champagne, the region, about 90 miles from Paris. In spite of its proximity to “gay Paris,” champagne did not enjoy great fame until fairly recently. Although grapes were cultivated in the region as early as Roman times, the often cold, foggy climate worked to ensure that grape ripening was not consistent from year to year. Hence the wine was not always good, or plentiful.
The Danube River brings to mind not only the Blue Danube Waltz, that compositional blend of romantic, gently swirling, rhythmic phrases – punctuated by the occasional dramatic phrase – it is also evocative of Lower Austria and Vienna, a graceful and refined area that includes great art in all forms, and wine, of course. Since wine country hiking here combines all these elements, it fell on the must-do list.
Austria has 20 wine regions, one of which is the Wachau, situated along the banks of the Danube, upriver from Vienna.
Wine production in the Wachau region dates to at least the 1130s.
The geography helps to make grape-growing possible. The ancient Danube River helped created the loess soils, and now serves to moderate temperatures; the bowls formed by the steep hill slopes (called Ried), shelter vines from winds and capture the sun’s heat.
Focusing on Pinot Noir again, I headed for the hills west of the small Swiss town of Hallau, known as Blauburgunder-land. In Switzerland (and some places in Austria), Pinot Noir is known as Blauburgunder. Here, the hills are covered by these vines, facing the sun for most of the day.
