Five months of physical therapy paid off when I was able to get back on the slopes this winter. This year’s big ski trip was to Ischgl, Austria. “Downhill”, the new movie featuring Will Farrell and Julia Louis-Dreyfus, was filmed in Ischgl.  It is a beautiful Austrian ski resort, where you can ski back and forth between Austria and Switzerland.  We had great weather, nice enough to eat lunch outside most days, and one powder day.  We stayed at Hotel Brigitte, a ski-in property, and enjoyed four course dinners each evening. I was tasked with choosing the wine for our table.  There were many quality Austrian and Italian wines on their wine list, such as Gewurztraminer, Blaufrankisch, St. Laurent, Zweigelt, and Super Tuscans.

One of the wine picks was a wine produced within the city limits of Vienna, called Weiner Gemischter Satz (Viennese mixed blend), produced by Fritz Weininger. Enjoying a bit of renaissance of late, this traditional white blend is predominantly Grüner Veltliner, with Weissburgunder, Welschriesling, Chardonnay, Riesling, Sylvaner, Traminer and Neuberger. Rather than being grown in separate vineyards, and blended after the wine is fermented right before bottling, these different varietals are co-planted in the same vineyard (within Vienna’s city limits), harvested at the same time, and fermented in stainless steel as one wine from the start. Straw yellow, with aromas of apple, peach, white pepper, lemon, apricot, honeysuckle, and white flowers. Medium-bodied with fresh acidity, this wine pairs perfectly with wiener schnitzel and fish. It’s available online for about $20 a bottle.

My friends who live in Vienna most of the year were able to join us in Ischgl for the week.  They recognized one of their favorite red wines on the menu: Weingut Erich Scheiblhofer “Big John” Cuvee Reserve, which had won an informal wine tasting they attended.  A blend of 60% Zweigelt, 20% Cabernet Sauvignon, and 20% Pinot Noir, it is aged 12 months in American oak barriques, which imparts caramel notes to this fruit-forward, modern style blend. Sadly, not available in the USA, yet.

Our trip had a three-day extension in Prague, a city I had never been to before.  It is one of the most beautiful cities I have ever been to, with cobblestone streets, colorful stone buildings, and a massive castle overlooking the Vltava River.  While known for its delicious Czech beer (we had lots of that also), we found a tasty red wine on sale for the equivalent of $3.50 a bottle in the local Billa grocery store:  Frankovka. I had no idea what it was, but for $3.50, who cares? Dark red in the glass, dark berries and pepper on the palate, medium-bodied, it reminded me of Blaufränkisch, and it turns out, that’s what it was. Blaufränkisch has probably been around since the middle ages when it was called “Frankisch” wine, but the name Blaufränkisch was first recorded in a Wine Exposition in Vienna in 1862. It’s sometimes called Lemberger when grown in Washington or New York. Blaufränkisch is very easy to drink, and Austrian versions are easily found in local wine stores for about $15-20 a bottle.

Na Zdravi!