Austria's winemakers achieve 1 Grand Gold, 9 Gold, 9 Silver and 4 Bronze

WINE AWARD INTERNATIONAL publishes Winter Ranking 2023

Part 1 of the cross-country and cross-style quality test with 283 wines from 19 countries - the results from Austria - free debriefing

Frasdorf, March 2023 - For the 3rd time since the inception of the open-topic WINE SYSTEM Awards, the PAR® jury tasted the WINE AWARD INTERNATIONAL in early March. It is the first in the annual programme and it is highly rated by the PAR® Certified Master Jury. The reason: the oenological diversity. Traditional craftsmanship, modern winemaking and experimentation, rare grape varieties, diverse origins - everything is there and thanks to PAR® the team is methodically well equipped. Just a glance at the 13 Grand Gold wines gives an idea of the range. They come from 7 countries in diverse climatic zones and show that quality is anything but uniform - from natural red wines from Sweden to traditional Vin Santo from Italy to modern 99-point white wines from Portugal, which are reductively vinified in steel tanks. In total, another 111 wines were awarded gold, 125 silver and 34 bronze.

The Grand Gold wines per category from Austria

• In the dessert wine category: the 2022 Neusiedlersee DAC Spätlese/Late Harvest Muscat Ottonel (organic/cosher) from Hafner Family Estate on Lake Neusiedl in Burgenland.

The top placings from Austria in the other categories

• In the red wine category: with 93 points and gold of the 2021 St. Laurent Classic (kosher/bio) from Hafner Family Estate on Lake Neusiedl, Burgenland.
• In the white wine category: the 2022 Gelber Muskateller from the Schwarzböck Winery in the Weinviertel region with 92 points and gold.
• In the Rosé category: the 2022 Uhudler dry from the Trummer Winery in Styria with 92 points and gold.
• In the sparkling wine category: the 2022 Uhudler sparkling from the Trummer Winery in Styria with 90 points and gold.

The only award with free debriefing for participants

While most awards are used purely for marketing purposes, WINE SYSTEM - Trust your Senses has made a name for itself by providing not only points and medals at its awards, but also essential information for quality management. For this purpose, data on the type of production and ingredients of the wines are collected in advance, before the sensory components are meticulously documented in the blind tasting by a team of two, and only in the third step are they qualitatively classified in terms of origin, climate and type of production as well as drinkability. All this is recorded in a clear data sheet, the PAR® sheet. This procedure means that producers know afterwards what they can improve about their wine. In order to clarify questions of understanding, the PAR® Master Jury even offers a free telephone debriefing of the evaluations, which is increasingly taken up especially by winegrowers.

WINE SYSTEM quality assurance manager Alexander Morandell: "We are honoured that both long-established and young wineries entrust us with their wines in order to find out in which segments they can be improved. Because that is precisely the strength of our rankings: the information content. We can only encourage all participants to make use of the telephone debriefing with us; it is our concern that the added value of PARalso reaches the producers."

For those who want to see for themselves, the tasting results can be viewed online down to the smallest detail. By clicking on the PAR® logo, the respective data sheet appears - enthusiasm index included. winesystem.de/en/wine-award-int/results/

WINE SYSTEM - Trust your Senses with its three fields of activity - consulting, training and PAR® quality competitions - has been a competent partner for winegrowers, the trade and the specialist public in the field of wine and sensory analysis since 1999. Since 2019, the company has been under the management of board members Brigitte Wüstinger and Martin Darting and has been organising renowned wine quality competitions for many years - including the ORGANIC WINE AWARD INTERNATIONAL, the WINE AWARD INTER-NATIONAL, the PIWI WINE AWARD INTERNATIONAL and many smaller competitions. The WINE SYSTEM database with over 40,000 items is the basis for the PAR® evaluation system developed by Martin Darting. It is appreciated in the professional world as a comprehensive information portal and serves as an important tool in many areas. www.winesystem.de