Austria’s Wachau region has been given DAC status

Wachau DAC has become the 15th region in Austria to gain the DAC status.

Wachau DAC is in the North West of Austria and is the first significant wine region that the Danube River flows though, located within the larger Niederösterreich region.

Austria’s DAC is a Protected Designation of Origin, “Districtus Austriae Controllatus”, and is similar to Frances AoC or Italy's DOC or DOCG. The Austrian system also allows for other features such as a Prädikat system similar to Germany to describe the ripeness of the grapes at harvest, so terms like Spätlese or Auslese can be used if the grapes' sugar levels are high enough.

Austria also has a system to describe regional wines, village level wines and single vineyard wines. Comparing Austria to say, Burgundy in France, a regional wine in Burgundy is often labelled as Burgundian and the equivalent is Gebietswein in Austria. Village level wines in Burgundy are known as Communes and in Austria Ortswein. While the top single vineyard wines may be Premier Cru or Grand Cru in Burgundy, in Austria they are classified as Riedenwein.