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20 years ago, “natural wine” was the freaky stuff drunk after-hours in Williamsburg and the East Village. Today, collectors around the world chase bottles of natural wine as passionately as DRC – and pay top dollar for some of them.

Where did natural wine come from, and how did it spread so far and so fast? 
In a word: Beaujolais! 

Austria is not just a tiny place with time honored traditions and amazing terroir. It is a model for the future of wine. Their remarkable renaissance, taking them from bulk wine blenders to quality wine wunderkinds, was just the beginning. For a glimpse of the future of wine, look no further than Austria!

The Beaujolais wine region is not small, but it isn’t too complicated either, and it’s definitely easier to understand than many French regions like Burgundy or the Rhône. The first thing to understand is that the wines of Beaujolais are divided into three in three Classifications: Beaujolais, Beaujolais Villages, and Beaujolais Crus. 

Few things are as exciting as realizing you are experiencing an undiscovered phenomenon. Like your cousin who was playing Nirvana tapes before they hit the radio, or the line cook flipping burgers next to Danny Meyer. You vibrate with the energy of the thing, you can’t wait for it to infect everyone else. You start passing out cassette tapes and inviting your friends out to dinner.

Today, that’s me and Burgenland.

Beaujolais has been one of our favorites since we opened Flatiron. There’s probably no region that we, the Flatiron staff, drink more regularly.  This blog shares all the reasons we love Beaujolais wine and why you should too!

With such diversity it can be hard to summarize the region’s wine style. But to us, the heart of the matter is that Lower Austria gives us authentic wines. And best of all, they do this at incredibly fair prices.

The Wachau Valley is the epicenter of Austria’s greatest wines. In fact, to many wine consumers, the wines of the Wachau are the wines of Austria. 

While that sentiment sells Austria short, ignoring many diverse and excellent wine regions, it’s not baseless. The Wachau’s vineyards, defined 1,000 years ago by local monks, are still recognized today for producing some of the world’s greatest white wines.

Monforte shines through its sheer diversity. 

It does have quite a bit of limestone in its soils, but less than Serralunga, and in general the soil types, altitudes and orientations are as mixed up in Monforte as in any other village. 

We spotted a recent column in the New York Times from the esteemed Eric Asimov — a column encouraging readers to celebrate even the mundane with 12 bottles of fizzy wine, and not a Champagne among them. All of our favorites, from every corner of the winemaking world and from myriad varieties, were represented. 

It’s an exciting time to discover the wines of Austria. The dynamic styles produced by the technically proficient graduates of the Klosterneuburg juxtapose the experimental natural winemakers breaking the mold in every region.

We've highlighted two producers and wines that could not be more different. But, what do they have in common? Easy: a commitment to incredible, singular, focussed wine making. 

I adore Castiglione di Falletto because it is balanced.  The best wines possess a regalness and composure that is only possible when you stray from the opposite ends of a spectrum and wander towards the happy middle.  

Here you have wines that do have intense structure and aromas – of course, as this is Barolo! – but also poise.