Summary: This week, it's an episode near to my heart, since allegedly 25% of my family is from here: Austria. I tell an anecdote about traveling there as a dumb college student and "translating" some German. Then, after some great shoutouts (thank you for writing in and reviewing us on iTunes), we move on to the main topic. Since 70% of production is white, we first discuss the main grapes of Austria: Grüner Veltliner (Grooner Felt-LEAN-ah) and Riesling. We chat a bit about the reds of Austria: Zweigelt (SFY-Gelt), Blaufrankish, and St. Laurent. Then we cover the regions. We talk about Vienna and the three super high quality regions of Kremstal, Kamptal, and Wachau (along with it's classifications of dry whites: Steinfeder, Federspiel, Smargd) We touch on the classification system of wines and what it means -- Landwein, Tafelwein, Qualitatswein, and Pradikat. Then we touch on the slightly scandalous, tabloid history of Austria. From the Romans, to Charlemagne, to the Cold War and then to the wine scandal that rocked the industry in the mid-1980s and how Austria rose like a Phoenix from the flames out of that. One more horrible pop culture reference and then we sign out. Hope you enjoy! If you like the podcast, please review it on iTunes, drop a comment below, or join the awesome conversation on Facebook (Wine For Normal People page) and Twitter @normalwine! If you've got a question you want us to answer, post it on any of those places and we'll include it on the show! Thanks for listening! We can't wait to hear from you! Podcast music: "Café connection" by morgantj / CC BY 3.0, ©2009 - Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) Map: Licensed under theCreative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported, 2.5 Generic, 2.0 Generic and 1.0 Generic licens
