Livelihood Withers for Vienna Vintners

Beethoven drank here. So did Brahms, Freud and, more recently, Bill Clinton and Sophia Loren.

But vintners in Grinzing -- the wine district in a hilly pocket of northern Vienna -- warn that their age-old role as hosts to wine lovers is being threatened by unfair competition, generational change and a cold shoulder from City Hall.

They say a vital part of Vienna’s cultural heritage is at stake. After all, the Austrian capital’s image as a livable city is due in great part to unique traditions like Grinzing’s leafy, village-style inns serving their own light wines, many made from grapes grown within the city limits.

“How can it be possible that Vienna is profiting from Grinzing, the world’s most famous wine region, while allowing us to perish?” said innkeeper Franz Hengl, the district showman who heads the Union of Grinzing’s Friends.

The whites and reds of Grinzing -- and the vineyards stretched over the sun-kissed hills overlooking Vienna -- have served as inspiration to artists and ordinary folk since the first vines were planted more than 2,500 years ago. Histories of Grinzing claim that Beethoven, Brahms and Haydn hit upon some of their best musical ideas while strolling the hills above the district -- or imbibing its wines.

Hengl’s battle pits him and half a dozen other traditional innkeepers against what they see as two main enemies: huge, corporate-owned ersatz wine inns and city officials indifferent to Grinzing’s plight.

Speaking at his centuries-old inn as waitresses in traditional garb put the finishing touches on a dazzling buffet of roasts, salads, sausages, cheeses and strudel, Hengl says that over the last 20 years, dozens of traditional innkeepers have given up the fight against banks and insurance companies that run sprawling new establishments seating hundreds of tourists who spill out of buses from Italy, Germany and the Czech Republic.

These inns serve cheap wines bought by the tanker load and sold as Grinzing’s traditional Heurige brands -- a designation originally reserved for young reds and whites made from the innkeepers’ own vineyards.

No more than five of the 17 remaining inns in Grinzing serve their own wine, and that number could shrink further because Vienna’s Chamber of Agriculture has determined that it is impossible to grant innkeepers a trademark for locally made wine.

Hengl says City Hall has shrugged off pleas from traditional innkeepers for financial aid, help against unfair competition, and special protected status for genuine old inns and their wines.

“We have no one to turn to. Every department says, ‘We’re not responsible,’ ” Hengl said.

Some ordinary Viennese agree that Grinzing isn’t what it used to be. “We haven’t gone to Grinzing for years,” said Leopoldine Wacher, 57. “Too many tourists, and too little Gemuetlichkeit!” -- which roughly translates into English as “coziness.”

City officials dispute Hengl’s view of their efforts. Spokesman Christoph Ronge says Vienna does everything possible to help Grinzing and the other wine districts through advertising and financial support allowed by European Union constraints.

Herbert Schilling, head of a rival group of vintner-innkeepers, acknowledges that competition has grown, including from those who peddle bogus Heurige wine.

Still, he says, those who work hard will continue to succeed. “Only those who make a high-quality wine and manage their business well have a chance,” he said.

But Grinzing is also being abandoned by its young.

Many vintners have given up family businesses founded centuries ago because their sons and daughters prefer 9-to-5 jobs paying more money than their parents’ 24/7 lives.

“Things have changed,” said Karl Hengl, who is getting out of the inn business. He is a distant relative of Franz Hengl.

Hengl says that when his 26-year-old daughter decided to become a bookkeeper, he and his wife had no choice but to sell a three-generation family tradition to new owners.

“It hurts,” he said. “I know they will not put their heart into it. It’s all money, money these days.”