Secrets Of Austrian Wine Revealed In Singapore

Johannes Gebeshuber, Austrian winemaker in Singapore for Austrian Wine Week. Photo by Angela Lansbury. Copyright.

During Austrian wine week in Singapore I went to Leopold's wine bar in Tanjong Pagar to meet the visiting Austrian winemaker Johannes Gebeshuber and try his wines which are not just organic but biodynamic. 

Johannes told me that yesterday's (Monday's) opening night wine tasting dinner attracted lots of Austrians who live in and/or work in Singapore. I tried three white wines and two reds and recalled some of my visits to Austria..

I nostalgically recalled how we bought the popular etched, squat bubble-bowl wine glasses with the short green stem, with an ironwork table stand. We bought our first set in Vienna's wine region, Grinzing. Called Romer, these glasses were popular from the 1900s to the 1980s says Johannes Gebeshuber. (Pronounced not shuber but gebes-huber)

Riedel

Nowadays you are served wine in the expensive, upmarket Riedel glasses which come from the Tyrol region of Austria. (Riedel pronounced like reed, but the spelling is i before e. In German you pronounce the second vowel). Riedel glasses are thin with fine rims and the glasses are shaped to maximize the aroma or flavour of each type of wine or spirit.

If you want to taste wine in Austria, you can go to a suburb of Vienna to Grinzing for winebars or outside Vienna to a vineyard where you can taste their wines:
Johannes Gebeshuber

Jubilaumsstrasse 43

2352 Gumpoldskirchen

tel +43 2252 611 64

Austria
Www.weingut-gebeshuber.at

In Singapore to taste the Austrian wines visit

Leopold

96, Tanjong Pagar Road
Singapore 088517
Tel: +65 8189 9049
Www.leopold.sg

leopoldspirits.com

Author

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.

Incanto Restaurant, Harrow on the Hill, New Chef - and my menu translations

Incanto has recruited a new chef Michelin star restaurant chef, Peter Howarth, from Pennyhill Park.

We read the news on a Harrow newsletter. A google search threw up a picture of the chef and other staff plus restaurant photos and pictures of food on the Incanto Facebook page. I managed to read it and see lots of photos.  Now the page keeps jumping about and sending me error messages.

The Incanto website has lunchtime and tasting menus with some terms I don't know so I'm doing some research.
http://www.incanto.co.uk/index.php/restaurant/menu/

A handy explanation of organic and biodynamic wine is on their website.
http://www.incanto.co.uk/index.php/restaurant/wine/organic

Amuse - to amuse - a little free taste
Anitpasti - starters  (Italian)
carpaccio - sliced meat like salami, beef not pork?
ciabatta - bread - crusty with big air holes, goes dry fast, oval loaf
confit - pressed meat or vegetables, with lumps and strings compressed, like a thick pate or pot of corned beef, weighted and cooled
croutons bread cubes fried or baked until crisp, often in soup, sometimes in salad
Duxelles - mushrooms and onion fried (sauteed) in butter and reduced (made thicker from heat)
primo piatti -  first course
guanciale  - pillow
hollandaise - Dutch (sauce made with egg yolk, like mayonnaise, but mayonnaise mixes the yolk with oil, whilst hollandaise used butter which is richer and more calorific)
Madeira jelly - made with Madeira wine from Portuguese island in the Atlantic, in four grades of sweet to dry but mostly in England Malmsey which is the sweetest
Pain au chocolat - French bun with chocolate (pain means bread)
penne - short pasta
(pesto dressing for pasta made of olive oil and pine nuts, green colour from basil)
puree - made liquid or into a thick smooth soup or paste in a liquidiser
quail - small bird meat eaten on bone
rosata - pinkish (wine which is pale pink)
rose - pink
rum bab sponge pudding shaped like a donut ring or bombe (ball) soaked in rum
scallop - seafood
(shallot - oval shape onion with pointed ends)

Wines:
Grand Cru - vintage - highest quality in most parts of France such Burgundy and Alsace (but in Bordeaux premier cru) and in right bank of Bordeau St Emilion main village has grand cry class A and other variations
NV non vintage (not old - not a good enough year to be stored in oak barrels for long periods)
blanc de blancs - white wine from white grapes
brut - dry (wine)
extra brut - extra dry (wine)
sec - dry (wine)
Klein Kloof - (Dutch for small gap)
noir - black (French)
Pedro Ximenez
Pinot Noir - a black skinned grape - noir is black
rose - pink
Tokay /Tokaji - Hungarian


I'll bring you more news in another blog post in 24 hours time.

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker. Please share links to your favourite posts.