The ever-illogical and beloved Viennese may house only the most precious vintages in their own cellars and their palates may be educated to appreciate only the noblest wines, but when the first green bush appears from under the caves of a vintners house in the little suburb of Grinzing, they arc off-as one man to the Heurige to drink Grinzinger 1957.
In German the word bauring means “this year's” or just “this.” It is most often used in describing heurige Kar ioffeln, new potatoes, words without romance or music. But Vienna speaks an enchanted language of her own. There, Heurige means the fragrant, fresh, new wine of Grinding and all that surrounds the lighthearted, carefree drinking of it. It means the place, the wine, and the age-old customs. The Viennese go to the Heurige and they drink Heurige and they call it all by the single word. It means Scbrammclmusik and zither playing; it means the indescribable atmosphere, the Stimnumg, the charm, the green wine hills, and the first taste of the cold, pale golden wine. It means the effect of the wine, different from that of any other, and the feeling of gaiety and happiness, of romance and enchantment, It means the traditional vendors who carry their heavy wooden trays of sweets and confections through the village from Hutrige to Heurige. It means good food-Wiener Backbendel, Grinzhiger Salat, and kalter Auf schbnitt-it means Vienna and it means spring.
The green bush that signals that a vintner is pouring new wine is a small bunch of evergreen boughs tied to the end of a staff and hung out from his low white house. The mo ment it is in view, word travels fast and far that Poldi's or Franzl's wine is ready, and every heart in Vienna begins to sing. From Jani the shoemaker's assistant right up to Herr Graf and Frau Grafin there is no one in Vienna who is going to miss the Heurige. It is said that a passing stranger once observed, “There must be a hole in heaven-over Griming.”
Heurige cannot be bottled or transported; it must come straight from the casks in the vintner's cellars to the tables set out in his garden. Since the Heurige cannot go to the Viennese, the Viennese, with Mohammed's wisdom, go to the Heurige. They go right out to the grape arbor at the back of the vintner's little house and, while they happily drink Grinzinger '57, Grinzinger '58 grows green on the wine hills behind them.
liver since the first vintners poured out their new wine to avoid taxes and discovered that the young golden wine was, in fact, a gold mine, there have been established procedures which are still followed. Originally, all the vintners drew lots, and each hung out his green bush only after the casks of the Heurige next in line before him had been drained dry. But as the taste for the new wine grew, it was possible for several vintners to hang out their bushes at the same time. Thus Jani and his Resl could find a primitive Heurige to suit their simple tastes, while Herr Graf and Frau Grafin went to the Heurige that their fathers and grandfathers had patronized before them. Fortunately the vintner always provided a son and heir to the vineyard, while the Graf and Grafin produced an heir to the title, so the noble family could go on for generations with a Heurige that they considered practically their own.
Austria is the only country in the world that grows most of its best wines within the city limits of its capital. Jani and Resl, who couldn't possibly afford more than a few tumblers of wine, packed their sausage, bread, and cheese in a rucksack and walked out to Grinzing. They chose a Heurige that provided only the wine and the rough wooden tables and benches in the garden; itinerant musicians might stop to play heurigen Lieder and pass the hat for coppers before they moved on. Jani and Resl sat arm in arm in a garden that overlooked Vienna. They watched the sun setting and they ate their heavy slabs of black bread and sausage. They drank the delicious new wine from thick tumblers as casually as they would have drunk water, and they saved their last coppers for the sugar-men whose tempting trays were piled high with traditional confections. There were always little sticks strung with sugared dates and figs, which were sold by the stickful. For those who could afford such sweets, there were wedges of Pisebingertorte or little chocolate confections wrapped in foil. The wine was cheap and the Viennese were born musicians. Many brought their own guitars, and all linked arms and sang as the magic of the evening drew them together.
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