Wine taverns in the vineyards at the edge of the city, where the tram terminates and Vienna stops being a capital.
Vienna is the only capital city in the world with significant commercial vineyards inside its boundaries — around 600 hectares of them, mostly on the slopes of the nineteenth and twenty-first districts. The wine is drunk in Heurigen, taverns where a grower sells their own most recent vintage.
The institution is regulated and old. Joseph II’s decree of 1784 allowed growers to sell their own wine and food from their own premises without a licence, and the rules that follow from it still shape the thing: a true Heuriger sells its own wine, opens only for part of the year, and hangs a bush of pine or fir — the Buschen — over the door when it is open. Ausg’steckt means the bush is out and so are they.
What to expect
You take a table, often in a courtyard under vines or chestnuts. Wine is ordered by the Viertel, a quarter-litre glass, or by the Achtel. The food is served from a buffet counter: you go up, point, and pay by weight or by plate.
What is on it: roast pork, Schweinsbraten, Blunzn (blood sausage), Liptauer (paprika cheese spread), pickles, Grammelknödel, cured meats, dark bread, and Kümmelbraten with caraway. It is not delicate.
The wine
Grüner Veltliner and Riesling are the whites. The Viennese speciality is Gemischter Satz — a field blend of several grape varieties interplanted, harvested and fermented together, which almost died out and has been revived, and now has its own DAC protected designation. It is the thing to order.
Sturm, partly fermented grape must, appears in September and October, is cloudy and sweet and deceptively strong.
Where
Grinzing is the name everyone knows, and it is pretty and it has coach parties and accordion music. It is not fraudulent, but it is the version with the volume turned up.
Nussdorf, one stop earlier on tram D, is quieter and has Beethoven associations — he stayed at several addresses in the area. Heiligenstadt is where he wrote the Heiligenstadt Testament in 1802, and the house is a small museum. Neustift am Walde and Stammersdorf, over the Danube in the twenty-first district, are where Viennese go and where almost no visitors do.
Getting there and back
Tram D from the Ring to Nussdorf, or U4 to Heiligenstadt then bus 38A to Grinzing. Both run late. Do not drive — Austria’s limit is low and the police check these roads specifically on summer evenings.
