Wine capital Vienna

Dear partners,

to put you into the proper mood for the next meeting in Vienna (January 24/25, 2013) we intend to provide you with some facts about the 

Wine Capital Vienna

-        145 000 wine-bottles of Vienna wine were exported last year mainly to the States, 66 000 wine-bottles arrived New York.

-         There are 228 wine-growers in our capital.

           Favourite are the Mixed Set, Veltliner and Riesling; red wines – particularly Cuvees -  recover lost ground slowly

     The Vienna Mixed Set : At least three vines originated from the same vineyard are combined grape-gathered and processed.

         The mayor of Vienna is helping every year in the smallest vineyard.

         The smallest vineyard is situated at the Schwarzenbergplatz 2 in the town centre, this vineyard has 60 vines and is 100 years old

          Since 228 years there is in Vienna the so-called ‘Heurigen’ – culture, more details about this tradition will be provided at the beginning of the workshop in January

          32 litres of wine are consumed on the average per year by each resident of Vienna or about 90 ml per day – this is “drinking in moderation” assuming that 200 ml (2 units) for women and 300 ml (3 units) for men per day are considered as responsible drinking internationally, but again, this is an average value only!!!

          Finally, there are 700 hectares of vineyards in Vienna from ‘Bisamberg’ via the ‘Nussberg’ till the ‘Maurerberg’

 Conclusion:

          It is said that Vienna seems to be the one and only metropolis in Europe with own wine – what about your capital in partner countries ?

Prosit and kind regards from Vienna

Petra & Achim

Annotation:

Figures taken from the ‘Wiener Bezirkszeitung’ as of 17./18. October 2012

Wine culture in Austria nowadays

According to a survey conducted by IMAS – an Austrian market research institute – 37 percent of the Austrian adult population buy wine occasionally. 36 percent are quite conservative regarding their wine buying habits and prefer to stick to wines, with which they had good experience in the past. Only 22 percent are willing to taste something new. The average Austrian wine drinker sets high value on a good price-performance ratio (70%), on trust in quality (63%), on friendly personnel (55%) and on attractive special offers (54%). Also the average Austrian wine drinker prefers to consume domestic wines.

In a podium discussion organized by the biggest Austrian wine retail company the results of this survey were discussed among a group of experts consisting of a wine journalist, a famous winemaker, the author of the survey, the president of the Austrian union of sommeliers and the CEO of the wine retail company. One outcome of the discussion was that Austrians tend to buy the name of the winemaker rather than wines –meaning that the brand names are more important than the wine itself. Austria’s wine drinkers are more and more quality-conscious.

Another important point raised during the discussion was that wine is a natural stimulant actually not needed. Therefore, Austrian wine drinkers need to be captured by emotional and background stories. The “young” winemakers – nowadays not only educated in making wine, but also in marketing it – realized this opportunity and strengthened a positive image of wine culture and brought it to a bigger target group.

Today people like to talk about wine, wine becomes a leisure activity. These are reasons, why the industry around wine grows. Nowadays, wine magazines can be sold to a broader public, success stories of winemakers are finding their way to mainstream media, wine presentations are taking place in big city halls and are sold out immediately – just to mention some effects of the commercialization of the wine culture. It is trendy to be a wine drinker.

But questions remain: Is this only an Austrian trend or are there similar observations in other countries? Is this commercialization a positive trend or could this lead to a wider distribution of alcohol abuse? What accompanying measures could be undertaken to sustain this trend, but prevent people from abuse?

Italian Contest for a Responsible Drinking motto

Cramars is organizing a contest dedicated to the students who attended and are participating to the sensory analysis of wine courses in our institution.

The purpose of the contest is to stimulate the active participation of students by adding to the educational information useful for the knowledge of the wines and the region that produces them, even a critical view on responsible drinking which means the positive and negative aspects related to consumption.

The initiative includes the creation of a motto that gives a positive image of responsible consumption linked not only to the knowledge of the wine but also of the territory and its resources sensitizing both targets that means fans of this subject and those who live the alcohol topic in a non-balanced and/or prejudicial manner.

Participants have one month to submit their work to be judged by a jury of experts the 14^th December 2012.

The prizes will be distributed among the top three winners that will have the opportunity to participate in a project workshop during one of the next meeting of Responsible Drinking project.

Cramars staff is waiting with great interest for the results of the contest that will be published on this blog.

Prevention App in Germany

Young People’s Alcohol Consumption: First Smartphone-App for Prevention

Binge drinking and very young people who have to stay in hospital because of acute alcohol intoxication: alcohol-misuse is increasingly noticed as a serious problem of several young people everywhere in the country.  As part of a project called “HaLT” in the area of Osterode am Harz the specialist department for addiction and prevention related to the Diakonie of Herzberg  and the community of Bad Lauterberg started an innovative project of prevention which aims to inform young people in their living environment about alcohol and the risks: with a smartphone-app! This region takes the second place in the statistics of Lower Saxony on the item of alcohol caused admissions to hospital.

This emergency app offers information about alcohol, a simulation game and emergency aid in case of strong alcohol misuse for encouraging young people to estimate the risk of alcohol consumption and  to react in the right way in emergency cases.

A problem is not only the increasing consumption of alcohol. It is accompanied by a misjudgment of the situation.  Young people do not recognize a misuse in case of drinking a lot and they do not bring friends in hospital in case of alcohol intoxication because they see drinking a lot of alcohol as normal and that someone feel bad after having drunken  is not a wonder. That feeling bad and intoxication is a difference and that it can cause serious illnesses and in the worst case dead is not part of their way of thinking. Using the app may show them their limits and bring them to reflect about the consequences of alcohol misuse without an educational impact. That may motivate young people to assume responsibility for their selves and their friends and help them in emergency cases.

Students from the Leibniz University Hannover who study “Software Engineering” created this app.  You can get it for free on Android run Smartphones in Google Playstore under  “HaLT Alkohol Notfall”.