The Concours Mondial du Sauvignon becomes Sauvignon Selection by CMB.
April 18th to 20th, 2024, the international Sauvignon Blanc competition Sauvignon Selection by CMB will take place in Steiermark.
Winemakers from Steiermark have been demonstrating their skills for years at the largest international Sauvignon competition, which is also one of the most influential white wine competitions in the world. Thus, Steiermark is establishing itself as an important growing region for first-class Sauvignon. As a supporting program around the blind tasting of over 1,000 Sauvignon Blancs, the 60 international experts will get to know the terroir, wines and winegrowers of Steiermark.
The Sauvignon Selection by CMB is an international wine competition whose goal is to showcase the diversity of Sauvignon Blanc. The event takes place annually in spring in a selected wine region. In 2018, Steiermark was already the host country, and the tasting took place in the provincial capital of Graz.
In 2024, the jury members will blind taste Sauvignon Blancs from all over the world right in the middle of the STEIERMARK wine region. The competition will take place at Bildungszentrum für Obst- und Weinbau Silberberg – Landesgut Silberberg in Leibnitz, the regional winemaking school. The supporting program will take participants to the three wine-growing regions of Südsteiermark, Vulkanland Steiermark and Weststeiermark. Steiermark, as the most mountainous wine-growing region of Austria and with an illyrian climate offers optimal conditions for fragrant, juicy Sauvignon Blancs. In addition to excellent wines, there are many more reasons to visit the Green Heart of Austria: the green, lush landscape, winegrowers who warmly welcome their guests to their family-run wineries and typical winery restaurants called Buschenschanken, the rattling Klapotetz, the landmarks of the region and much more.
Wines from Steiermark are known for their fragrance and their juiciness, for their spiciness and their minerality, for their straightforwardness and their sophistication. And wines from Steiermark are extremely determined by their origin, by the temperate, low-wind and high-rainfall overall climate, which allows for any number of microclimates, by weathered volcanic rock soils, soils of weathered solid rock such as slate and gneiss, soils on limestone, on gravel and conglomerate, on sand and sandstone, and opok.
On the steep hills of Steiermark in the heart of Europe, Sauvignon Blanc finds ideal conditions. The Steiermark climate, soil and sites suit the grape variety very well, which is why Sauvignon Blanc has become increasingly important in recent years. According to the wine cadastre 2020, Sauvignon Blanc, the parade variety and winner of many international wine awards, also leads the grape variety ranking in terms of area with 902 hectares (17.7% share of the total area of 5,096 hectares). In Südsteiermark, Sauvignon Blanc is the most planted variety with 691 ha, while 157 ha are planted in Vulkanland and 53 ha in Weststeiermark. The total area of Sauvignon Blanc in Austria is 1691.67 ha.
“The Sauvignon Blanc variety produces world-class wines in Steiermark across all 3 regions. When so many top winemakers focus on one variety, success is bound to follow – also very important: the terroir of the Steiermark winegrowing region is predestined for this variety.”
Stefan Potzinger, Obmann Wein Steiermark
At national and international tastings, Sauvignon Blancs from Steiermark regularly achieve top ratings. This is also shown by recent results at the Sauvignon Selection by CMB, formerly known as Concours Mondial du Sauvignon. At the 2023 competition, wines from Steiermark were extremely successful: 82 medals and two trophies went to Steiermark. Over 42% of all wines submitted were awarded gold or silver. In the gold medal ranking, Steiermark was ex aequo with France with 44 medals each. This means that a quarter of all gold medals awarded in the competition were from Steiermark. In the country ranking, Austria with 85 total medals (82 of them from Steiermark) was ranking second after France with 115 medals.
The Steiermark DAC system of origin, which was introduced with 2018, stands for “wine with protected origin” and offers outstanding wines with a guarantee of origin. The Steiermark DAC areas Südsteiermark DAC, Vulkanland Steiermark DAC and Weststeiermark DAC were the first areas in Austria to make hand harvesting of grapes mandatory. The focus is on Ortsweine (village wines) and Riedenweine (single vineyard wines). To guarantee ripening and development time, Gebietsweine (Wines of the area) come to market from March 1st, while Ortsweine and Riedenweine are only released on the market from May 1st after harvest. Wines from Steiermark are often harvested on slopes with extreme inclination. More than half of the vineyard area is mountain vineyard. THE TERROIR OF STEIERMARK is UNIQUE: The unique interplay of climate, soils, vineyards and the nature of the area enables the winemakers to make distinctive wines with their own unique character.
Wein Steiermark is the ambassador of wines from Steiermark at home and abroad and supports the winegrowers from Steiermark. Wein Steiermark stands for variety, conviviality and efficiency. With communication and sales promotion measures it pursues the goal of increasing the recognition wines and wineries from Steiermark at home and abroad. The association currently has around 460 member wineries. Winegrowers from Steiermark cultivate 5,096 hectares of vineyard area according to the Wine Cadastre 2020, about 11% of the total Austrian area, and produced a total of 229,313 hectoliters of wine in 2022 according to Statistics Austria, about 9% of the Austrian wine harvest.
More information and films
Graz, September 2023
