[3], In West Germany, following a lengthy investigation, six former leading employees of the wholesale dealer and bottler Pieroth were sentenced to fines of one million Deutsche Marks by the Landgericht in Koblenz in April 1996. “Mr. During the mid-1980s, a discovery is made about Austria’s wine that threatens to destroy the country’s entire industry. Hell yeah, thanks for reminding me of this channel. The affected wines were immediately withdrawn from the market. [8] Glykol was also announced to be the 1985 Word of the Year in Germany. At these facilities, some Austrian wines were illegally blended into German wines by the importers, resulting in diethylene glycol ending up in some bulk-bottled West German wines as well.[2]. Four thousand years of winemaking history counted for little after the "antifreeze scandal" of 1985, when it was revealed that some wine brokers had been adulterating their wines with diethylene glycol. One of the best youtube documentaries I've seen constantly engaging and something I've never heard of, very high stakes, very well done. [8] They stayed at approximately the same level until 1989, and were slightly higher in 1990–97, but still well below pre-1985 levels. I really like this guy’s channel. Many of the cheap sweet wines exported from Austria were blends from different grape varieties, and several of them did not carry any varietal designations, in contrast to the more expensive Prädikat wines of West Germany, which often were produced from Riesling grapes. Crossref. The next step, he said, was to supply the data to a law firm. It's one thing of adults drink themselves to retardation, but kids? We have chosen a few of these for you to browse through in our online wine shop. Not until 2001 did the export volume, at just over 50 million liters, match the old level. The scandal was uncovered by wine laboratories performing quality controls on wines sold in West Germany, and immediately made headlines around the world. Wine poisoning is a very dangerous condition, the treatment of which should ideally be performed by specialists. Don’t force yourself to finish the whole bottle. Therefore, unlike cases of simple sweetening, the 1985 DEG findings immediately took the proportion of a full-scale scandal requiring action by federal authorities in both West Germany and Austria. Overview of Austrian Wine Production. The scandal destroyed the market for Austrian wine … As soon as the phrase "antifreeze wine" was uttered I immediately remembered that episode. ProbeComposer 5 views. Apparently these producers ran into problems in some weak vintages, where much of the grape harvest did not reach sufficient ripeness levels. (at around 18 minutes) I wonder if this is why grape juice is not a common thing in Ireland (and a lot of Europe). dry, etc), as well as the official Federal Inspection Number and name of the producer or bottler.. However, much of these Austrian wines were focused on the low cost segment, and were priced lower than German wines at the corresponding level of sweetness.[1]. Heidler Thal Vineyard Kamptal, Austria 2012 is a good example. I sent my brother the first episode mostly as a joke seeing as it's 40 minutes long. In April 2003, 16 members of Gustaf Adolph Evangelical Lutheran Church in the small farming community of New Sweden, Maine, fell gravely ill after a meeting where they'd had coffee brewed in an urn. [4], DEG was otherwise used as an industrial chemical or as antifreeze, although ethylene glycol is more common for that application. The Austrian Wine Poisoning | Down the Rabbit Hole. The Austrian Wine Poisoning | Down the Rabbit Hole. [8], Many other legal actions took place over the coming years in West Germany. New; 7:32. There is an early episode of the Simpsons where Bart goes on exchange to France and ends up at a dodgy vineyard where he ends up exposing to the police that antifreeze is being added to the wine. [3], By itself, simple sweetening (also illegal) would not necessarily do the job, since it would not sufficiently correct the taste profile of the wine. Press question mark to learn the rest of the keyboard shortcuts. In past years, Austrian wines have been lumped in with their neighbors Germany and Alsace, but recently the Austrian Wine industry has taken America by storm, gaining headway with its most popular grape: Grüner Veltliner a.k.a. Not named PR? Just like most red wines worldwide, sticking to your native grape doesn’t necessarily lead to the very best wine. [10] It thus took the Austrian wine industry fifteen years to regain its former position in terms of export volume, despite optimistic predictions from some quarters in Austria that it would all be forgotten in other countries in one year's time. In the end, the wine was destroyed by being poured into the ovens of a cement plant as a cooling agent instead of water. As a consequence of the scandal, a total of 27,000,000 litres of wine (corresponding to 36 million bottles or seven months' worth of Austria's total wine exports at the pre-1985 level) had to be destroyed by the West German authorities, which had confiscated or otherwise collected the wine. Damn informative! It seems that the facts may have become slightly distorted after 33 years. The 1985 diethylene glycol wine scandal was an incident in which several Austrian wineries illegally adulterated their wines using the toxic substance diethylene glycol (a primary ingredient in some brands of antifreeze) to make the wines appear sweeter and more full-bodied in the style of late harvest wines. [8] Having seen the immediate collapse of wine exports, the Austrian government rushed this legislation through parliament in order for it to be in effect before the 1985 harvest. He's now on episode 22. [6], The wine scandal has been the subject of many satirical references to Austrian wine, both inside Austria, in Germany and beyond, and lasting long after 1985. "Wine with brats: I would pour a fairly fruit driven Austrian Gruner Veltliner, something that has a pretty rich stone fruit component with smoky, white pepper notes. [7] The first prison sentence, of one and a half years, followed in mid-October. April 24, 2020. By using diethylene glycol (DEG), it was possible to affect both the impression of sweetness and the body of the wine. Fredrik Knudsen is a treasure. Here is a copy of Pepi’s email. Buy the best you can. Other courts had ruled in civil law proceedings that deliveries of wines found to contain DEG were a form of non-fulfillment of a purchase contract that removed any obligation to pay, but that customers still had to pay if they only suspected that a wine contained DEG, and the wine was subsequently cleared of suspicion. tl;dw. Austrian Wine is Not What You Expect. GruV, an acidic white grape characteristically described by white pepper, green apple and citrus. Propaganda departments was still a thing in the 80's? [8] The findings immediately made headlines in West German media, and from there were cabled out throughout the world. [3][4] The Austrian wines exported to West Germany were of a similar style to those produced by West Germany itself, meaning semi-sweet and sweet white wines. "Most wine companies, when I mention arsenic and wine in the same sentence, literally almost hung up the phone on me," he said. The Truth About Bottled Water Industry (2020) - The story of how actors and celebrities get into the plastic bottled water industry and relentlessly promoting it to make more money which is causing a huge environmental disaster. Currently on part 35. [1], From mid-July onwards, it was almost impossible to sell Austrian wine on any export market. [13] Thus, the legal status of the blacklist was a crucial element in the many contract disputes. One of the convicted Wagram winemakers, Karl Grill, proprietor of Firma Gebrüder Grill, committed suicide after being sentenced. I honestly love the range of topics the DTRH series covers, from Cults in Oregon to the ongoing misadventures of Chris chan. Many of the contaminated wines weren't from the Austrian wineries that did their own bottling and labeling but the middle-men that sent purchased wine to the big bottlers like Pieroth, a German wine company with over 300 years of history that had $230 million in sales in 1984. 31. During the mid-1980s, a discovery is made about Austria’s wine that threatens to destroy the country’s entire industry. I'm all caught up on the Geno doc awaiting the next part! Austria’s proximity to Germany means that many people assume the wines are similar, but they’re not. Austria is home to a thoroughly unique wine industry that, even once you get beyond the country’s most famous wine, Grüner Veltliner, is among the most delicious in … While we strive to provide only good links to good and accurate athentic websites, we have no command or control over the wesites content and changes of these sites. Although small in size Austria produces some of the finest wines in the world, not widely available online these wines are select gems. One vintage plagued by these problems in Austria was 1982. About 30% of the wines are red, made from Blaufränkisch, Pinot noir and locally bred varieties such as Zweigelt. Austrian wines are mostly dry white wines, though some sweeter white wines are also produced. [1] Many of these Austrian wines were exported to West Germany, some of them in bulk to be bottled at large-scale West German bottling facilities. TIL. German wine chemists have stated that it is unlikely that an individual winemaker of a small winery had sufficient chemical knowledge to devise the scheme, implying that the recipe must have been drawn up by a knowledgeable wine chemist consulting for a large-scale producer. [4][7] Domestic wine fraud involving illegal sweetening had occurred earlier in West Germany, and had led to investigations and prosecution of the winemakers involved. Share. The wine label must contain the following information; origin, variety, vintage, quality designation, alcohol content by volume, reference to its residual sugars (i.e. On July 9, the Federal Ministry of Health in Bonn issued an official health warning against the consumption of Austrian wines. The product of these influences is an early spring followed by a long growing season that is warm and dry – so dry that vineyards on rocky soils require irrigation. After watching this episode of down the rabbit hole the subject of this episode seems like the inspiration for that episode of the Simpsons. [6], In The Simpsons season 1 episode "The Crepes of Wrath", a reference to the scandal is made when two Frenchmen whom Bart is staying with are arrested after putting antifreeze in wine and making Bart drink it. Speaking of which, the ongoing chris chan docuseries by geno samuel is one hell of a watch as well. Today, we lean towards an Australian red wine that is a bit more muscular than your typical Pinot. [3], In the weeks following the breaking of the scandal, several dozens of wine producers and wine dealers were arrested by Austrian authorities. ... Lead poisoning from homemade wine: a case study., Environmental Health Perspectives, 10.1289/ehp.01109433, 109, 4, (433-435), (2001). [3] The industry's practice of DEG adulteration was traced back to Otto Nadrasky, an 58-year-old chemist and wine consultant from Grafenwörth, Lower Austria. They can be complex and spicy, elegant and floral or even just juicy and smashable; their versatility makes them one of the best Australian red wines you can buy. The short-term effect of the scandal was a complete collapse of Austrian wine exports and a total loss of reputation of the entire Austrian wine industry, with significant adverse effects on the reputation of German wines as well. This Austrian-brand was even one of the first to introduce hand-crafted and mouth-blown functional glasses to the market, according to Shira Tsiddon, sommelier at The Norman Hotel in Tel Aviv. [1][6], The first wine discovered to contain DEG was a 1983 Ruster Auslese from a supermarket in Stuttgart, analysed on June 27, 1985. The best place for video content of all kinds. Oh yeah. The wine is a potent palm liquor distilled from coconut sap with an alcohol content of up to 40% to 45% by volume. The poisonings occurred in the … Share. The Austrian Wine Poisoning | Down the Rabbit Hole; Politics . [8] Many of the adulterated wines were found to originate in Wagram in Lower Austria, where a consulting wine chemist was prosecuted. My recent article about the Austrian wine scandal attracted a response from a friend of mine who runs a wine school in Austria. Reddit; Wechat; Abstract. Also, long-term consumption of DEG is known to damage the kidney, liver and brain. Nevertheless, in terms of quality and value Austrian wine is notable versus its more famous competitors in Europe such as Burgundy and Italy. An Auckland Hello Fresh customer says he is disappointed in the meal kit provider’s “terrible” customer service after he discovered plastic in its mince. The long-term effect was that the Austrian wine industry focused their production on other wine types than previously, primarily dry white wines instead of sweet wines, and increasingly targeted a higher market segment, but it took the Austrian wine industry over a decade to recover. Sorry what? Finally, he put out a new video! At the levels of ripeness that were reached, the wines would be less sweet, less full-bodied and more acidic. 1985 diethylene glycol wine scandal. Check out this channel's video on the Mouse Utopia. Gustaf Adolph Evangelical Church in New Sweden, Maine. “Shortly after both dropped to the floor,” The Vancouver World reported the next day. 10 years for a decade of retards. Much stricter wine laws were also enacted by Austria. [9], From a pre-1985 level of around 45 million liters per year, exports immediately fell to one-tenth, or around 4.4 million liters in 1986. I'm surprised the poisoning of children's juice got glanced over. The traditional sweet wines of West Germany and Austria are produced from late harvest grapes, some of them affected by noble rot, and labelled in a hierarchy of Prädikat designations from Kabinett to Trockenbeerenauslese, depending on the ripeness of the grapes. Lead intoxication has been reported to occur as a consequence of nonoccupational exposure, the source being mostly the leaching of lead from fluid containers in domestic use. "—Mark Mendoza (Coi / … New Sweden, Maine Church Poisoning: Arsenic. 0 Shares. There are many good red wine brands making ripping Pinots in Australia, and they can be made in so many marvellous ways. One of Fredrik Knudsen's best, The end is also spot on, Austrian wine is radically better because of the scandal than it once was. I've dug into the Chris Chan mythos in the past and always found the guy just... fascinating in the strangest way. What made the 1985 finds very different was that a toxic compound had been used, and subsequent sampling indicated that a significant number of different bottlings were part of this dangerous adulteration scheme. Savour the wine. On Nov. 12, 1905, Thomas Jackson shared a Sunday morning beer with his wife, Teresa. Develop a taste for German and Austrian wines which can be as low as 7% ABV. Ryan Probert - Down the Rabbit Hole - Feelin' un-owl (The Austrian Wine Poisoning) - Duration: 7:32. [14][15], British rock band Half Man Half Biscuit reference the scandal in the song "RSVP" from their 2011 album 90 Bisodol (Crimond). Buy half bottles (or decant half the wine into an empty half bottle. 16.6m members in the Documentaries community. However, it's best to avoid green-colored skin or potatoes that taste bitter (both signs of high solanine content). Austria’s wines are now highly prized both by wine experts and wine lovers all around the world. Even things that I initially didn't find interesting based off the title, I end up enjoying. I'd give anything to be in that MIT lecture hall. There is a distinctive tension common to all these wines which should be emphasised, based on seven factors. Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/fredrikknudsen. As the sweet wines were more favoured at the time of the scandal than they have been in the 1990s and 2000s, and since the Prädikat designations were almost universally recognized throughout the German-speaking countries, a cheap Auslese or Beerenauslese was often identified as a "bargain" by many German consumers. Thus, the production of wines at higher Prädikat levels tends to vary from year to year depending on vintage conditions, and all wines with higher designations sell at a premium price. Austria’s wine regions are influenced by Atlantic airstreams from the west, by the continental climate of the Hungarian Plain to the east, and by the Mediterranean to the south. That's comical. Tweet. From our website, you can visit other websites by following hyperlinks to such external sites. Although sweet reserve (blending a wine with its own must) was allowed for the production of semi-sweet wines, no external sources of sugar were allowed for any wines with a Prädikat designation. Many of these Austrian wines were exported to West Germany, some … The 1985 diethylene glycol wine scandal was an incident in which several Austrian wineries illegally adulterated their wines using the toxic substance diethylene glycol (a primary ingredient in some brands of antifreeze) to make the wines appear sweeter and more full-bodied in the style of late harvest wines. At the time of the scandal, West Germany was the most important export market for Austrian wine and had been so for a number of years, with an increasing trend. Though Austria is largely known for producing outstanding white wines, more than one-third of the country’s vineyards, or nearly 39,000 acres, are planted to red grapes. It is believed that when this led to insufficient quantities of wine being available to fulfill the contracts, some producers started to search for methods, including illegal ones, to "correct" the wines. Most of the wines come from small wineries. After watching this episode of down the rabbit hole the subject of this episode seems like the inspiration for that episode of the Simpsons. The case went through all three tiers of the administrative courts, and was finally settled on October 18, 1990, when the Federal Administrative Court of Germany ruled against Pieroth and found that Geißler had the right to issue the list.[12]. He puts a lot of work into his research and covers some unique topics. [11], A stricter wine law was enacted by the Parliament of Austria on August 29, 1985. That's a hell of a rabbit hole alright. [citation needed], "Scandal over poisoned wine embitters village in Austria", "Adulterated wine: "Nice round and oily" (in German)", https://www.simpsonsarchive.com/episodes/7G13.html, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=1985_diethylene_glycol_wine_scandal&oldid=995894575, Articles with German-language sources (de), Articles with dead external links from February 2019, Articles with permanently dead external links, Articles with dead external links from May 2019, Articles with unsourced statements from April 2020, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, This page was last edited on 23 December 2020, at 13:17. There is an early episode of the Simpsons where Bart goes on exchange to France and ends up at a dodgy vineyard where he ends up exposing to the police that antifreeze is being added to the wine. 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