While on a family vacation to Munich, Germany for Oktoberfest, my family decided to take a day trip to Salzburg, Austria. We originally went to see the Sound of Music film site in the mountains, and quickly wondered what else we could/should do there. After bringing up that I need to visit a winery for class, my family insisted we stop by one in Austria for what we assumed would have a beautiful view. After driving up numerous curvy hills, our assumption was validated!
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Luckily, there was a woman that spoke good English working at the winery. After going through several questions, I asked about the grapes that are grown. This particular rose wine is made of Concord, a common red wine grape variety. The woman I spoke with said they make predominantly one type of sparkling rose wine – the MönchsbergSparkling.
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The Mönchsberg Sparkling bottle of wine is pink, with ribbon holding a clipping of the grape vine just below the cork. This is the poster on the outside of the winery door. | Translation: here is the Mönchsberg Sparkling, sold Monday-Saturday (hours) and Sunday (hours).
From asking questions, I learned that this winery opened in 2012. The first harvest for their wine did not begin until 2015, though. Since then, the English-speaking woman confirmed that they focus on sparkling rose wine, and do not oak any of their wines. She mentioned that she enjoys their “cottage at the top of the hill” location, and emphasized that the winemaking is for tourist and consumer use. The woman described that their winery is more thought of as a hobby than as a business, which is interesting. This goes hand in hand with learning that their winery is completely weather-dependent, and some years they may not even be able to mow and cut the 2,000 grapevines that they have.
Apparently, many tourists stop by this winery because it’s located down the street from another big tourist site in Salzburg – the Hohensalzburg Fortress. This was funny, because we were visiting the Hohensalzburg Fortress when we decided to look up nearby wineries. Doing this caused us to stumble upon this one. The woman told me that people buy a bottle of their sparkling rose almost every single day, which is crazy considering how hidden the winery is from main streets.
This is the front entrance of Weingut Mönchsberg, what they refer to as their “cottage on the hill.”
The woman said the owner of the winery is named Christian and he grew up in Austria. Christian always helped his family grow various fruits, such as apples, apricots and grapes. By practicing harvesting fruit, he got older and was curious about producing wine all by himself. We were shown around the “cottage,” and it was pretty simple inside – a few rooms with tables that all had the outdoor vineyard view overlooking the mountains. Photos of various wines and their famous sparkling wine bottles were framed throughout the building. The vineyards are on a pretty steep hill slope, so we were shown the first row of vines and were advised that the slope is more difficult to walk through the further you go down. This is when they explained the difficulty to mow and maintain the beautiful vineyard outside, due to the steep slope. The workers and owner of the winery live in a farm nearby, and have focused on their rose wine. But, the woman did mention that they have a distillery inside the cottage and have begun to make gin! Their sparkling rose is sold in nearby Salzburg restaurants, thorugh the wine merchant Kölbl and of course at the winery.
Closer look at the vineyard outside.
When we originally went inside the winery, my family sampled the predominate wine made here, the MönchsbergSparkling. Before trying it, we were told the wine smells and tastes like forest berries – which I had never heard as a descriptor before. We were also told that the wine is fermented like red wine from the beginning, then is carbonated before bottling. That’s probably why this wine has a very pretty color. It’s packaging is adorable too! After sampling the wine, asking questions and getting a full tour, I can agree that this wine is carbonated, but not too much. It has a deeper flavor than most rose wines I’ve tried before. The woman told us she recommends trying this wine with sorbet, and she said to watch the reaction that happens with the wine when you do. Because of this, we bought a bottle of the MönchsbergSparkling wine to take home with us to try. Unfortunately, there was no other literature from the winery to take home, so this was my souvenir!
Utilizing the beautiful vineyard scenery to get a pic with my souvenir bottle of wine!
I have only visited one other winery before, and it was not as beautiful as this one. I’m so glad my family was willing to stop by for educational (ha-ha) purposes, and I plan to visit another winery in Oklahoma this year to compare the two! Everyone working was very welcoming and appreciative of our visit at this winery, which makes me want to give service to other wineries near the University of Oklahoma. Cheers to more wine drinking!
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