I have 4 half bottles of assorted TBAs from Kloster Siegendorf from the
period 1969 - 1979. I am looking for information concerning these wines
in that era. A Google search indicates that this property has been run
by Lenz Moser since 1989, that it now mostly produces Bordeaux type red
grapes, has a small amount of white grapes, and that there are about 25
ha of vineyards. However I have not found any information about earlier
owners or reviews of wines from the mentioned era. Thus I would be
interested in any information that can be provided. I had to take a
little German in school, but I do not read it very well. However I
probably could struggle through a German reference if an English one is
not available.

The information on one of the 4 half bottles, bought at auction many
years ago, is:

Trockenbeerenauslese, Klosterkeller Siegendorf, 1979,
Burgenland/Austria, Austrian Pinot Blanc, estate bottled, alcohol 14% by
volume, Jost von Hoepler selection. There is a round gold seal with
Burgenlaendische Weinpraemiierung Goldmedaille 1981. The thing that
stands out to me on the label is the 14% alcohol. Many top German TBAs
have only a very few percent alcohol.



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Hi,

You might want to drop a line to Julia Sevenich.

She is a delightful lady who lives in Austria, is attending the
Austrian Wine Academy and contributes her writings to our site

You can see her pages at

http://www.stratsplace.com/7ich/index.html


Art Stratemeyer
=============================
http://www.stratsplace.com
A Community Celebration the Joy of Wine,Gardening and the Arts

Cellar! Wine Software
http://www.cellarwinesoftware.com

(Cwdjrx _) wrote:

> I have 4 half bottles of assorted TBAs from Kloster Siegendorf
> from the period 1969 - 1979. I am looking for information
> concerning these wines in that era. A Google search indicates
> that this property has been run by Lenz Moser since 1989, that
> it now mostly produces Bordeaux type red grapes, has a small
> amount of white grapes, and that there are about 25 ha of
> vineyards. However I have not found any information about
> earlier owners or reviews of wines from the mentioned era. Thus
> I would be interested in any information that can be provided.

Klosterkeller Siegendorf was owned by the Patzenhofer family, but
the family had little interest in running the estate, since they
were involved in another field. They owned and ran the large
Siegendorfer Zuckerfabrik, making infinitely more money there.
Jost Höpler was the manager of the estate. Höpler more or less
single-handed created a very successful wine brand, "Pinot Blanc
Siegendorf", a dry white that made its career in what was then the
high-end gastronomy in Austria. The lower acid content made it
more food friendly than most wines at the time in the 1970s and
early 1980s (at least that was what they said).

Klosterkeller Siegendorf was involved in the events of 1985.
Mautner Markhof, a food, yeast and spirits conglomerate and wine
distributor, was prepared to take over Klosterkeller Siegendorf in
1986 (I worked for them at the time, but was not involved in
negociations), but then Lenz Moser (they themselves in an state of
reorganization with Laurenz IV. Moser having to leave the firm
that went under new control) successfully acquired Klosterkeller
Siegendorf.

Rumors had it that Lenz Moser asked Höpler to continue as a
managing director, but he resigned, later creating his own estate
in Winden:

<http://www.hoepler.at/englisch/e_frames.htm>

I am sure Jost Höpler will be able to answer questions about the
older Siegendorf wines under .

HTH a little,

M.

Michael Pronay, thanks for the very detailed information. Besides the
wine I mentioned, there are 2 half bottles of TBA Weissburgunder, a 1973
and a 1976, also 14 % alcohol. All of the mentioned wines were imported
by a Texas firm. The better Austrian wines were seldom seen in the US in
those days. I obtained the lot of half bottles on auction at the Chicago
Wine Company many years ago at a very attractive price. I will open one
before long and post notes.

I also have a Retzer Gruener Veltiner Eiswein Auslese from 1973. I
assume a modern Austrian eiswein must be at least the beerenauslese
level just as is he case in Germany. However, in the 70s, the Germans
even sometimes made a kabinett eiswein, which likely is the reason the
law was changed to require beerenauslese or above and banned mention of
anything other than plain eiswein on the label. If you have never tasted
a kabinett eiswein, be thankful.

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Michael Pronay wrote:

> Klosterkeller Siegendorf was involved in the events of 1985.

Do you think that means those bottles are tainted? Whenever I read
about the scandal of '85, I am unclear for how long the involved
wineries were using additives.
Just curious,
e.

There was much sensational reporting of the wine scandal in the press in
the US, UK, and elsewhere. First, the compound that was supposed to have
been added is diethylene glycol. This is an extremely sweet substance,
and likely only a very small amount of it would be needed to sweeten. It
is not antifreeze, athough it may be used in some antifreeze solutions
that usually are a mixture of several compounds. However antifreeze made
a good headline for scandal sheets. The period of concern probably
extends from sometime in the 70s to 1985 when several were arrested and
stocks of wine were seized. At that time there was a large demand for
less expensive sweet wine in Germany, and Austria was able to supply
large quantities of sweet wine to meet this demand. There were contracts
between Austrian and German wine firms to fill this need for sweet wine.
The bulk of the wines sweetened were cheaper ones that were shipped to
Germany. There appears to be no record of anyone being harmed by this.
However there are 2 serious problems. In the pure legal sense,
something was added to wine that was not allowed. The second problem is
the health issue. Here you must remember that nearly everything,
including table salt, can be toxic in a high enough dose. The lethal
dose of diethylene glycol that cause 1/2 of those taking it to die
(LD50) when taken by mouth is 20.76 grams per kilogram of body weight
for rats and 13.21 for guinea pigs. Extrapolated to a large human size
100 kg super rat, this would be over 2000 grams. Thus traces used to
sweeten wine are likely to be of little health concern, although
undesirable. For example, much, much less of some of the oil soluble
vitamins, that we all need, can make you extremely sick or even kill.
The LD50 information quoted comes from the 11th edition of the Merck
Index.

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I would not want anyone to think diethylene glycol is safe for human use
in large quantities. There have in fact been deaths from ingestion of
large amounts, and it may be more toxic for humans than for rats. There
is a review article on this subject in the Annals of internal Medicine
that can be viewed at: http://www.annals.org/cgi/content/full/122/6/456
Note that the deaths resulted from consumption of mainly repeated
doses of medicine that contained mainly diethylene glycol as a solvent.
Near the bottom of this article the finding of diethyl glycol added to
wine from Europe is noted, but it is also stated that no human toxicity
was observed with a link to Lancet as a reference. As noted in the
article, there was a large group of deaths in the late 1930s, and this
was well known and documented in the scientific and medical literature.
A simple literature search by even one major wine companyin Austria or
Germany before deciding to sweeten wine with tiny quantiies of
diethylene glycol would have saved the Austrian wine industry from a
severe PR problem and loss of a huge amount of income.

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(Cwdjrx _) wrote:

> Michael Pronay, thanks for the very detailed information.
> Besides the wine I mentioned, there are 2 half bottles of TBA
> Weissburgunder, a 1973 and a 1976, also 14 % alcohol. All of the
> mentioned wines were imported by a Texas firm. The better
> Austrian wines were seldom seen in the US in those days. I
> obtained the lot of half bottles on auction at the Chicago Wine
> Company many years ago at a very attractive price. I will open
> one before long and post notes.

Don't expect *too* much. Much has been said (and written) about
the ageing abilities of Austria BAs and TBAs, but very rarely did
I come across anything older than 20 years that was still fresh.
Otoh, if you don't mind madeirisation, go ahead!

> I also have a Retzer Gruener Veltiner Eiswein Auslese from 1973.
> I assume a modern Austrian eiswein must be at least the
> beerenauslese level just as is he case in Germany.

True.

> ... If you have never tasted a kabinett eiswein, be thankful.

;-)

M.

wrote:

>> Klosterkeller Siegendorf was involved in the events of 1985.

> Do you think that means those bottles are tainted? Whenever I
> read about the scandal of '85, I am unclear for how long the
> involved wineries were using additives.

99 percent of the companies involved use diethylene glycol (DEG),
1 percent a substance I don't remember. Tt was something with a
sulphur component. Unlike DEG, this substance was not used to
adulterate or counterfait wine, but was used as a preservative.
But since it was not on the legal list of wine additives, it was
illegal. Iirc, in Klosterkeller Siegendorf wines they found this
substance.

M.

(Cwdjrx _) wrote:

> There was much sensational reporting of the wine scandal in the
> press in the US, UK, and elsewhere. First, the compound that was
> supposed to have been added is diethylene glycol. This is an
> extremely sweet substance, and likely only a very small amount
> of it would be needed to sweeten.

Sorry to correct you, but diethylene glycol (DEG) is *not*
extremely sweet, not even "sweet", "slightly sweet" at most.

And, in contrary to what most believed, it was *not* used to
sweeten wines. What happened was that to wine water (20 to 30
percent) and alcohol was added. This adulterated brew had to pass
legal exams where the low dry extract (or any other of the minimum
requirements) would have posed problems. DEG boosted this value to
legal levels, and augmented the wine output (at little cost) by 20
to 30%.

Since the labs did not search for DEG, the adultorators were of
the safe side, at least in principle. The way it found its way to
the authorities sounds incredible: One of the winegrowers
(apparently with an IQ lower than his cellar steps) put the DEG
bill into his income tax declaration. The rest is history.

> ... There appears to be no record of anyone being harmed by
> this. However there are 2 serious problems. In the pure legal
> sense, something was added to wine that was not allowed. The
> second problem is the health issue. Here you must remember that
> nearly everything, including table salt, can be toxic in a high
> enough dose. The lethal dose of diethylene glycol that cause 1/2
> of those taking it to die (LD50) when taken by mouth is 20.76
> grams per kilogram of body weight for rats and 13.21 for guinea
> pigs. Extrapolated to a large human size 100 kg super rat, this
> would be over 2000 grams. Thus traces used to sweeten wine are
> likely to be of little health concern, although undesirable.

DEG was added to wine at a dose of between 2 and 3 grams per
litre, the maximum found was 5 g/l. If you compare 2 g/l of DEG to
roughly 100 g/l of alcohol (ethanol) you find in a litre of wine,
there is an easy calculus to be done. An lethal intake of 2000
grams of DEG would need an intake of 2000 litres of wine, which is
simply impossible. Besides, the ethanol intake would be lethal way
before DEG even might start to harm you.

M.

Here is a bit more information from the Merck Index, 11th ed. Diethylene
Glycol aka. 2,2'-Oxybisethanol aka. 2,2'-oxy-diethanol. Colorless,
hygroscopic, practically odorless liquid; sharply sweetish taste.
Melting point: -6.5 degrees. Boling point: 244-245 degrees. The reports
that I saw did not mention that the wine also was diluted with water. If
this is so, there was intent of deliberate fraud rather than just
improving the taste of the wine for a certain market. Most assumed, from
descriptions such as those in Merck, that Diethylene Glycol was being
used to sweeten and perhaps smooth the wine, which could well be,
depending on the amount added. After all glycerol(glycerine) has food
uses for smoothing homemade wines and can be bought in wine supply
stores for that purpose. And glycerine is closely related to Diethylene
Glycol in many respects except toxicity. Merck describes uses of
glycerol as a sweetener, for finishing liqueurs, in confections etc.
Here is what a bottle of Wine Art Finishing formula(glycerine USP) has
to say. "To smooth and mellow wine add 1 - 2 oz.(US fluid oz) per
gallon. To smooth out and add body to liqueurs and cordials, use 1 - 2
oz. per quart." Unless Diethylene Glycol is much more effective than
glycerine for this purpose(doubtful), then the very small maximum
detection limits you reported likely would rule out use for smoothing,
including sweetening. Since Diethylene Glycol has a much higher boiling
point than water, it likely would not boil off in a determination of
total solids. I would guess that the tried and safe glycerine was not
used because wine was tested for glycerine. If glycerine had been used,
then there would have been just a mild scandal
about watered down wine, which likely would have been forgotten fairly
soon. However the association of Diethylene Glycol with many deaths in
very high doses and the fact that , unlike glycerine, it is not approved
for any food use of which I am aware sets the stage for a major public
relations disaster and is the stuff that sensational publications love
to report.


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Cwdjrx _ wrote:
> I would guess that the tried and safe glycerine was not
> used because wine was tested for glycerine. If glycerine had been used,
> then there would have been just a mild scandal
> about watered down wine, which likely would have been forgotten fairly
> soon. However the association of Diethylene Glycol with many deaths in
> very high doses and the fact that , unlike glycerine, it is not approved
> for any food use of which I am aware sets the stage for a major public
> relations disaster and is the stuff that sensational publications love
> to report.

I suspect that part of the scandal's perceived seriousness was the
public's (and press's) association of the name diethylene glycol with
that of the far more deadly ethylene glycol, known to many for its role
as antifreeze for cars. To this day, many summaries of the '85 scandal
talk about wine contaminated with antifreeze, at best a gross distortion
of the facts.

Mark
>
>
> My mailbox is always full to avoid spam. To contact me, erase
> from my email address. Then add . I do not
> check this box every day, so post if you need a quick response.
>

Mark Lipton wrote:

> I suspect that part of the scandal's perceived seriousness was the
> public's (and press's) association of the name diethylene glycol with
> that of the far more deadly ethylene glycol, known to many for its role
> as antifreeze for cars. To this day, many summaries of the '85 scandal
> talk about wine contaminated with antifreeze, at best a gross distortion
> of the facts.

I agree that the antifreeze distortion is what made it such a big deal
here in the US. But this raised another question. I remember two other
scandals in the US involving imported wines. One was a French company in
the late 60's that was selling Algerian wine in the US as Bordeaux and
the other was the 1971 Chianti scandal where 3 million gallons of
chianti in a basket was imported into the US and it was not even wine.
Did these same scams effect wine consumption in European countries?

Mark Lipton stated:"I suspect that part of the scandal's perceived
seriousness was the public's (and press's) association of the name
diethylene glycol with that of the far more deadly ethylene glycol,
known to many for its role as antifreeze for cars. To this day, many
summaries of the '85 scandal talk about wine contaminated with
antifreeze, at best a gross distortion of the facts."

I think that your statement is correct. You do not want to have the word
antifreeze assocated with any kind of food in the US these days. A woman
in Georgia was recently convicted of killing both her husband and
boyfriend using antifreeze in their food, and this was covered on Court
TV. Another woman made headlines last summer by killing her husband in
the same way.

Ethylene glycol is the main ingredient in many antifreezes now sold in
the US. But some antifreezes also contain diethylene glycol. I found a
can of antifreeze in the garage that listed ingredients. It is the Zerox
brand and contains ethylene glycol, diethylene glycol, dipotassium
phosphate, water, corrosion inhibitors, siicone silicate, defoamer, and
dyes. It is labeled "Warning: Harmful or fatal if swallowed." There also
is a caution that ethylene glycol has caused birth defects in animals.

Ethylene glycol is far more dangerous than diethylene glycol. However
there have been hundreds of deaths from diethylene glycol ingested in
large quantities over time, as described in the medical review paper I
posted earlier. The most serious event in the US was in the late 1930s.
Dithylene glycol was used as the main ingredient in a liquid containing
a then new sulfa drug. Instead of being cured, many people were killed,
and the problem was traced to the very large quantity of dethylene
glycol consumed rather than to the sulfa drug. Now how you explain to
the masses that the tiny amount of diethylene glycol that was found in
wine is of no concern from a health viewpoint is extremely difficult.
The passage of time has now helped, but it probably will require several
more years for the diethylene glycol - wne connection to fade completely
in the US.



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