Well-known town in the north-east of the Lower Austrian wine-growing region Weinviertel, only about 15 kilometres from the Czech border. The town is situated on the southern slope of the Falkenstein hills. It lies on the so-called "Brünner Straße", an old trade route from Vienna to Brno. This is also the origin of the name Brünnerstraßler for the typical rather acidic wine. Already mentioned in 1194 as "Poistorf", the first documentary mention as a wine-growing community dates back to 1334. The town's coat of arms can be found on the plague column in the centre. It shows two winegrowers carrying a huge bunch of grapes on a pole. Towards the end of the Thirty Years' War, the people of Poysdorf were able to save the town from looting and pillaging in 1645 by providing 1,000 buckets of wine (56 litres each) and a feast. In autumn 1814 Tsar Alexander I (1777-1825) of Russia and King Frederick-Wilhelm III of Prussia (1770-1840) travelled to the Congress of Vienna and stopped off in Poysdorf. The Resche Veltliner was to the liking of the highest personalities and so it happened that Poysdorf wines were exported to Russia from this time on.
The vineyards in the roughly two dozen municipalities belonging to Poysdorf cover around 1,400 hectares of vineyards. Many winegrowers deliver their grapes or wines to the local winegrowers' cooperative or large producers. The most important white wine varieties are Grüner Veltliner, Welschriesling, Frühroter Veltliner and Silvaner, the most important red wine varieties Zweigelt and Blauer Portugieser. A good proportion of the mostly acidic white wines are used for Austrian sparkling wine production, for example by the companies Kattus and Schlumberger. The best-known vineyards include Blauer Grund, Bürsting, Freibergen, Fuchsenberg, Hermannschachern, Kirchbergen, Lausenpelz, Neudharthen, Satzen (Poysbrunn, Wetzelsdorf), Saurüssel, Steinbergen and Weiße Bergen. Well-known wineries are Hirtl Martin, Schuckert Rainer, Taubenschuss Helmut, Walek Gerhard and Weinrieder. Attached to the Poysdorf town museum is an open-air wine-growing museum. There is also a wine panorama trail. Poysdorf is home to one of the examination centres for the granting of the state examination number.
Picture top right: Public domain, Link
Picture top left: By Karl Gruber - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, Link
Picture below: © ÖWM Wine Committee Weinviertel Haiden Baumann
