Rerelease of Ep 383: Domaine Wachau of Austria - One of Europe's Best Co-Ops with Roman Horvath, MW

Wine for Normal People

Host Elizabeth Schneider interviews Roman Horvath, the winery director of Domaine Wachau, to explore the unique viticulture of the Austrian Wachau

Key takeaways

• Roman Horvath achieved Master of Wine status despite English not being his native language and facing intense academic rigor.
• Domaine Wachau operates as a cooperative owned by individual growers, managing approximately 250 vintner families.

Main topics

• Master of Wine certification journey
• Domaine Wachau cooperative structure

Notable quotes

Wine is my, I don't know how you say it, second career.

Conclusion

The episode offers a profound look at how geography and tradition shap

Transcript preview

Speaker 1 (0:07) Welcome to Wine for Normal People, the podcast for people who like wine, but not the snobbery that goes with it. I'm your host, Elizabeth Schneider, author of the Wine for Normal People book and certified wine dork. Join me as I hit record on this conversation with a friend in the wine industry. This and all shows with guests are informal but educational discussions between passionate wine friends. All guests are personal friends or friends of friends in wine, not strangers. And like any conversation between friends, We're going to talk back and forth, interrupt each other, laugh, have fun, debate tough questions, voice opinions. Most of all, enjoy sharing our time together and with you. If you're in, pour yourself a glass, pull up a chair, and join us for this great chat. Speaker 1 (0:54) Today's episode is brought to you by Grapes the Wine Company in White Plains, New York, owned by my friend Daniel Posner. Daniel's one of the most knowledgeable, customer-focused wine people I know. And because he's in New York, he has access to almost anything imported into the U.S. Grapes the Wine Company ships to 40 states. So no matter where you're listening from, he can probably get you what you want. Go online anytime at GrapesTheWineCo.com and type in WFNP in special instructions for discount on shipping. Listen in. the middle of the show for more details. Quick note before I hop into this really amazing show, which dovetails so well with episode 620. And I wasn't sure whether I was going to re-release this, but I listened to it. after doing episode 620. And I felt like it brought together a lot of the things that I was saying in the show and helps reinforce it from somebody who's on the ground there. This show is definitely worth your time. It is worth listening to. Enjoy it. Use these two together to really understand this region. It's going to bring a lot of clarity to this region of the world. And it's also a fun show. So I hope you enjoy this re-release. And I'll be back next week with a new show. Roman Horvath is the winery director of Domaine Wachau. Domaine Wachau is among the leading wine producers in Austria, and it is a cooperative, but it has been cited as one of the best in the world. And Domaine Wachau has a full range of wines from this unbelievable area that is on the Danube, reflects the unique terroir. Small vineyard plots on very steep terraces along the Danube. There's some great diverse regional wines. The vineyards are all cultivated by Vintner families who work to capture the essence of this historic area. Its vineyards are world famous and have been for a very long time. Kellerberg, Achleiten, Singerriedel. Roman Horvat is a master of wine and he has been with Domain Wachau helping to transform this. wonderful winery cooperative into what it is today. Roman has so much insight to share with us, and he is going to tell us about Domaine Marcaut. So thank you so much for being here. Welcome, Roman. Speaker 2 (3:11) It's a pleasure being here. Speaker 1 (3:12) Tell us about you. Tell us about your background, where you grew up. Did your family drink wine? Did they make wine? How'd you get into wine? Speaker 2 (3:20) Well, I'm not coming from a wine family. Wine is my, I don't know how you say it, second career. Till my mid-twenties, I didn't have to do anything with wine. I didn't drink wine. When you're young here in Austria, you drink red wine mixed with Coke. Wow. Chinese Speaker 1 (3:37) style, right? Speaker 2 (3:38) Yeah, yeah. But they were very cheap red wine. So it's just like that. Speaker 1 (3:41) Is it at least Austrian red wine? Speaker 2 (3:43) Yeah, it's Austrian red wine. Okay, Speaker 1 (3:45) all right. At least we have that. Speaker 2 (3:46) Yeah. Or just typical white wine spritz, white wine mixed with mineral water. Only way that I consumed wine till my mid-twenties. And during my studies, during university, I had some part-time jobs and started to work in restaurants, in the entree business. And that way I got into contact with wine. And the interest grew. Then I bought eventually a good bottle of wine, which I didn't like at all. What Speaker 1 (4:17) was it? It Speaker 2 (4:18) was an aged Riesling. Speaker 1 (4:22) That could Speaker 2 (4:22) be hard. That I didn't know. So I bought my first wine book and many, many other wine books followed. And I attended my first wine tasting and many, many wine tastings and seminars followed. That way, I started with wine. Speaker 1 (4:36) Wow. So that's amazing. What part of Austria are you from? Speaker 2 (4:39) I grew up very close to Vienna, to the north of Vienna. Some kilometers, some miles further north, there's the wine fjord. But where I grew up, there wasn't any wine. It was rather a vegetable area, but no wine. So there's no real connection. Speaker 1 (4:54) It was just a regular childhood. Exactly. Like romping around in the vineyards. I didn't have that either. So I understand. So why did you decide to go for the Master of Wine? And what did you, I'm always interested in what you did your paper on. So the Master of Wine, for those of you who don't know, is a very rigorous program. You go through the... Wine and Spirits Education Trust, and you can go through all of these levels. You get a diploma. A very small number of people decide to do the Master of Wine program. So what made you do that, and what did you want to study? Speaker 2 (5:27) Yeah, and after my first wine seminars, many others followed, and then I started with the WSD and finished a diploma. After doing two interns on wineries in France and in Chile, I started with an importing company in Austria with a fine wine retailer. And I was responsible for buying, for purchasing. And after two, three years, I had the chance to travel the wine world, to get all this contact to all these great winemakers and the chance to taste all these wines. Yeah, and then I thought there must be more than what I knew at the time. So I needed some extra challenges. And in a very naive way, I thought I could do the MW. After two, three years, I realized it's very, very hard. But succeeding at my first exam with the tasting part, I had something in my pocket. So I could not quit anymore. It was not allowed. But otherwise, after three, four years, I would have said, well, no, it's too much. So I kept on trying. And at my last attempt, my last try, not officially, but my wife told me, so it's your last try. I also succeeded with the theory exam. Yeah, and I finished with the dissertation on the Austrian cooperative sector. So Speaker 1 (6:42) that fits in so well with what you're out there doing. Speaker 2 (6:44) Yeah, Speaker 1 (6:44) exactly. Speaker 2 (6:45) In 2009 was a hard, hard time, but also very, very important for building a strong character, for being goal-driven and so on. Speaker 1 (6:55) It doesn't sound like you needed that much of a push. What was the hardest part of it? What made it so difficult? I know everybody talks about the rigor of the Master of Wine and we've seen the Master Sommelier nonsense, but Master of Wine is a bit more, it's a bit more academic. I mean, it's basically a master's degree. What was so difficult? Was it balancing like your life? Speaker 2 (7:16) Of course, it was very, very difficult because English is not my native, my mother language, mother tongue. That was already a big challenge. And the educational system is also very different from UK, USA to German-speaking countries. Yeah. Because all the questions have to be answered in essays, which we don't do in Austria or Germany. Is it more like Speaker 1 (7:36) multiple choice where you are? Yeah. The answer. Speaker 2 (7:39) More or less like that here in our countries. So I even booked a writing seminar, writing essays and so on. which didn't have to do anything with wine, but just to learn the right way of writing, introduction, structuring, paragraphs, and so on. So that was a big challenge. But next Speaker 1 (8:00) to it, of course, it's time management. You have a Speaker 2 (8:02) job, family, and to do everything at the same time and to plan the year accordingly. Do Speaker 1 (8:10) you Speaker 2 (8:10) have children? I have three children. Oh, Speaker 1 (8:12) my gosh. All right. So you had, and they were probably young when you were doing this, yeah? Speaker 2 (8:17) I was in the middle of my educational program. So after year two, three, I started a new job here at Domain Wachau. And we moved here, my girlfriend and myself, just the two of us. Then we got our first baby. Then a year and a half later, we got twin boys. And then we moved again. Speaker 2 (8:36) So you had Speaker 1 (8:37) your hands full. That is insane. Speaker 2 (8:40) It's Speaker 1 (8:40) really interesting. And again, I'm not a big fan of the whole certification thing, but this makes me a little bit upset for you because it seems very inflexible that they wouldn't at least allow you to write it in German, right? Did that ever bother you? Speaker 2 (8:53) Yeah. In the meantime, you are allowed to write in German. So the theory part can be translated. The practical exam, so the wine tasting has to be done in English. But that might be Speaker 1 (9:05) easier. Speaker 2 (9:05) That's a little easier, right? Speaker 1 (9:06) I Speaker 2 (9:06) thought it can be even an advantage because I cannot become that poetic and write whatever about a wine. So I had to be very, very strict with my vocabulary and with my approach into wine tasting. So that was kind of help for that exam. Speaker 1 (9:23) So, I mean, what do you use today from your MW? It sounds like because you did your dissertation on exactly what you do. Do you think that it was useful? And what do you think about the fact that everybody wants a certification now? Do you think that it's necessary to be certified to be good at wine? Speaker 2 (9:39) Not at all. Of course, it helps. And the big, of course, you have a certain reputation. And when you have the two letters after your family name, MS or MW or whatever. But much, much more important was or is the network that you get. You make a lot of friends who are also very, very much into wine. Many importers from Domaine Wachau and different countries started with a friendship from the MW educational system. And honestly, I'm not that much into wine anymore. So I'm not the huge wine taster and talking about wine all the time because I run a company. It's more about management. and human resource and hiring people and creating a good atmosphere and being creative and innovative and so on. But the time, so finishing such an exam makes you a different person. You are very, very... accurate, very, very strict to yourself. You have to plan very, very carefully. So that helps a lot in a job. Speaker 1 (10:44) Yeah, I would bet. Speaker 2 (10:45) I don't know. It's more life school than more about each specific topic that you learn there. Correct. It's more how to organize your life and how you are able to do a couple of things, different things at the same time. Tell Speaker 1 (10:58) me how you got to Domain Wacow. How did that happen? I mean, it is... So prestigious. When you got there, though, it was not what it is today. I mean, the only other co-op that is as well-esteemed is probably the Prototory Barbaresco. What's the history of Domain Rock? How did you get there and what was it like when you got there? Speaker 2 (11:17) Well, I got here in a very, I mean, there was nothing special behind that. I applied here as a salesperson because I quit my other job, the purchasing. position as an Austrian wine importer. Being on the buy-in side is extremely exciting because you can travel a lot and taste a lot of wines. But I didn't see a strong future in this position. So there's more, you can move more, you can change more if you're on the management or on the sales side. So I wanted to do something different and I sent out a lot of applications, but it became Domain Wachau, not knowing what the future will bring. So I started in a sales position. And very, very soon after I was promoted, being the managing director, the winery director. Domain Wachau is a very, very historic estate, established already in the 11th century by the church and our underground cellar is 300 years old. And it was already one of the very good wineries in the 1950s and 1960s, but still worked in this kind of typical cooperative structure. And when Speaker 1 (12:27) you say that, so when you say that, do you mean that? So when I think of a co-op and maybe I'm wrong about this, but I think of, well, sometimes you have to take grapes in that aren't the greatest. So some of it is great and some of it isn't. Is that what you're talking about? For Speaker 2 (12:41) example, yeah, there's some issues in the structure of a cooperative because in Europe there are hundreds, thousands of cooperatives, but very, very, very few are really successful. I think we can Speaker 1 (12:52) count them on one hand, probably. Yeah, Speaker 2 (12:55) yeah. They're doomed to fail. Speaker 1 (12:58) The one in Chablis is good, too. I forgot about that one. There's like three or four. Yeah, right. Yeah. Speaker 2 (13:03) And in Champagne, they're very good ones. Speaker 1 (13:06) That's right. But I mean, when we say this, it really is very few. That's why when you hear co-op, usually... It doesn't have a great connotation, but occasionally it can work. And like we said, Pernotori and you are two really great examples of that. When Speaker 2 (13:21) you have the chance to work deep into the structure, the nature of a cooperative, then it can be one of the best wine companies, estates that you can imagine. Because there's so much knowledge and so much potential behind that. Because each of our growers, each of our Wintner family concentrates on a very, very small... plots on a very small vineyard and he can dedicate all his efforts, all his knowledge, experience on one specific vineyard. And in regions such as Wachau, it's very, very important because a lot of differences between eastern and western Wachau, altitudes, expositions, topsoils, and so on. You wouldn't be able to work that with a high level of mechanization. because each