Wine and Design
What springs to mind when you think of Vienna?
We’ll take a wild guess: Empress Sisi, the Waltz, Sacher cake and coffee? Ok, maybe add the K&D Sessions, Falco or Life Ball to the mix.
Needless to say, we Viennese love our Melange as much as the next person but we bet that wine and design were not things you’d usually associate with the Austrian capital.
So perhaps it’s time to explore two burgeoning fields for which Vienna is becoming increasingly competitive.
In recent years, Viennese design has become increasingly associated with Viennese wine. This rather distinct alliance has bubbled to the surface in a range of ways, from glassware and bottle design to label artwork and innovative wine-cellar architecture. The traditional Heuriger wine taverns are gaining popularity amongst a younger crowd thanks to their relaxed atmosphere, fine wines and delectable local delicacies. Over the last 10 years, the quality of Viennese wine has only strengthened–_Riesling_, Pinot Blanc and Gemischter Satz (a “blended wine” not to be confused with a cuvee), are among the best wines in the country.
Cue Vienna’s next generation of winemakers:
Four of Vienna’s best winemakers – Rainer Christ, Michael Edlmoser, Fritz Wieninger and Richard Zahel – joined forces in 2006 to create the group WIENWEIN.
What links them is their uncompromising commitment to quality, their enthusiasm and engagement for wine, and their common goal to define new standards of quality for Viennese wine, to highlight its unique character and to spread this message both nationally and internationally.
On a more design-related note, we’ve got events like Vienna Design Week, which acts as a platform to showcase Vienna as a hub of design with the seemingly endless exhibitions, venue-specific installations, discussions which dot throughout the city at this time.
Add the multi-faceted creative work being undertaken in the fields of product, furniture, industrial design and experimental design and you’ve accidentally stumbled upon a sleeping giant in the design world, proving beyond doubt that Austria’s capital is indeed a city full of design.
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