Austrian wine-growing region immediately east of Vienna, named after a Roman city whose ruins grace the Danube’s shoreline. Its roughly 1,000-ha/2,500-acre vine surface features nearly every grape variety planted in Austria. Considering its geological and mesoclimatic diversity, it is likely that the region will continue to produce a wide variety of wine styles. But its most ambitious growers have discovered some highly distinctive combinations of variety and site, as witness the reputation of Gerhard Markowitsch (in Carnuntum’s best-known wine village, Göttelsbrunn) as one of the top Pinot Noir producers; or the revival, spearheaded by Dorli Muhr and Dirk van der Niepoort, of Blaufränkisch on the once-renowned Spitzerberg, a limestone-rich remnant of the Carpathians that sits a mere 15 km/9 miles from slovakia’s capital Bratislava and nearly touches the northern tip of burgenland.
