2000 Vintage: The Wine of the Century at the Start of the Millennium?

Following a rather wet winter devoid of periods of severe frost and a March with plentiful precipitation, the vineyard soils were full of moisture. That proved to be extremely important, because an unbelievably warm and sunny spring began the week before Easter and continued throughout May and June. Those two months were the warmest of any in the past two hundred years. In addition to wind and heat - with temperatures at the Feast of Corpus Christi of 38.3 C° - the "pre-summer summer" also produced extreme drought in the eastern wine-growing areas. Only Styria was somewhat spared. Flowering occurred by mid-May without any problems.

A rather cool and rainy July finally provided the needed precipitation, which however remained rather sparse along a band stretching from the southern Weinviertel of Lower Austria to the Seewinkel of Burgenland. In August, sun-worshippers with short memories were already complaining about the fickle summer of 2000 when a new heat-wave arrived, practically roasting the grapes on the vine and hastening maturity by around three weeks. Thus red-wine grapes in Burgenland were already changing colour by the beginning of August! It was not just the vines recently planted that suffered during the hottest days of August, but in general also those that were planted on porous soils. At the end of August and in September light showers provided the necessary moisture, and September for the most part saw a continuation of the magnificent late-summer weather. A period of changeable, wet weather did not arrive until the second week of October. Combined with (too) warm nights in exposed areas such as the Wachau, this resulted in sudden botrytis growth. However, the rest of October was for the most part an Indian summer of calm, clear weather, permitting the individual wine-growers to harvest at will. Finally, a warm November with low precipitation and average temperatures well above 10 °C kept autumn spirits high. In particular, there was an almost complete lack of the dreaded periods of fog in low-lying areas.