Austrian sweet dessert wines

A Prädikatswein is a high-quality sweet wine in Austria. It can be a wine from late-harvested, sweet grapes, from wines that have undergone botrytis (noble rot) or frozen grapes (eiswein). The sugars in the wine may only come from the grapes themselves, artificially adding sugar to the wine is out of the question!

The weight of residual sugar in the wine determines the name that may be given to the sweet wine. This weight is weighed by the Austrian wine authorities themselves. The minimum alcohol percentage is 5%.

In Austria, residual sugars are weighed in degrees Klosterneuburg Mostwaage (°KMW). From sweet to sweeter and sweetest, the classification of Austrian sweet wines looks like this:

Spätlese

At least 19° KMW and made from fully ripe grapes.

Auslese

At least 21° KMW and made from hand-picked grapes of sufficient quality.

Beerenauslese (BA)

At least 25° KMW and made from overripe and/or noble rot grapes.

Ausbruch

At least 27° KMW and made from only noble rot or naturally dried grapes.

Trockenbeerenauslese (TBA)

At least 30° KMW and made from mainly bunches of grapes that are largely affected by noble rot and/or are very dried out (raisin-like).

Eiswein

At least 25° KMW and the grapes must be picked and pressed in a frozen state.

Strohwein/Schilfwein

At least 25° KMW and the harvested grapes must be dried naturally for at least three months.