Habsburg wines

Wines from the former Austro-Hungarian empire including Austria, Hungary, Slovenia and Italy. Plus shameless podcast pluggery.

Before we get on with today’s subject, I just wanted to plug the latest episode of Intoxicating History. It’s on how Johnnie Walker went from a shop in Kilmarnock to a global icon, a particular cult in India and the Muslim world. I think it’s the best show we’ve done yet so I’d urge you to listen and please do share, like, subscribe and all that kind of stuff. The next episode comes out tomorrow, Thursday 6 March, and looks at Green Chartreuse, Buckfast and other monastic drinks.

There was a joke that went round during a recent football tournament, I forget if it was the Euros or the World Cup:

“Did you see the Austria-Hungary match?”

“Who are they playing?”

The old Habsburg Empire which for a long time was seen as a joke, seems to be in fashion at the moment or at least being reappraised as not so bad. It’s one thing that unites certain conservatives and Europhiles, a look at how a multi-ethnic European state might just about work.

My family is about half Habsburg. My maternal grandmother was from what is now Slovenia. As a German speaker she wasn’t welcome in Yugoslavia so moved to the new rump Austria after World War One. Her husband who she met in London was from Lombardy, a part of Italy which was under Austrian rule until 1860. Later they moved to Scotland where they had four children but he died tragically young so I never met him. We called her Scottish granny though she spoke with a thick Austrian accent. While those on my father’s side had the misfortune to be ruled by Russians in what is now Poland and Ukraine.

I have a particular soft spot for the literature of the empire like The Radetzky March by Joseph Roth, The Snows of Yesteryear by Gregor von Rezzori or Beware of Pity by Stefan Zweig, and consequently have a somewhat sentimental view of the good emperor Franz Josef (above). If you’re going to live in an empire, the Austro-Hungarian one seemed like a good place especially for minorities like Jews. Certainly much better than the Russians which is why my father’s family came over to London in the 1890s.

Visiting former Hapsburg lands can be an uncanny experience with cities like Vienna, Budapest and Timișoara looking so similar in parts. Western Romania which was under Habsburg rule has a very different feel to the east which was under Turkish overlordship. It’s a similar story in countries like Poland, though I have never visited.

You can see this in the former empire’s viticulture.