Reisling Brut 2019 (Von Buhl, traditionelle Flaschengärung) and Riccardo Muti conducting the Vienna Philharmonic in the großer musikvereinssaal, Vienna, Austria.
Enjoying the Vienna Philharmonic’s New Year’s Day 2025 concert with Sekt and Stollen. I’ve followed this event for many years through the relays by ORF, the Austrian broadcaster, but haven’t yet secured tickets to the New Year event through the public ballot.
I wanted to try to replicate the event as much as possible in Sussex. It seems the traditional tipple in the interval is sekt. Terry baked us a stollen to his own recipe, he is guided by stollen we’ve enjoyed home-baked by friends in Westerwald and from Lubig Bäckerei in Bonn.
Sekt is unusual out of Germanic lands so this bottle was an import from Deidesheim in Rheinland as I couldn’t find one from an Austria producer. The grape is Reisling, traditional for sekt from that region.
Tasting the wine, the colour is a definite yellow. Plenty of fizz as this is the traditional method of tertiary fermentation in the bottle, as with Prosecco Superiore and Champagne. A similarly strong aroma, with the first impression of taste being apple. Thereafter, an intense apple aroma with hints of vanilla and an after-taste like honey. The bottle is labelled Brut (ie dry) but this wine was nothing like as dry as a Prosecco Superiore and definitely nothing like a brut champagne; there’s a lot more flavour but then not the rarefied wizz of a top dry champagne.
Our bottle and stollen lasted to the traditional concert encores, the Blue Danube waltz of Johann Strauss II and the Radetsky March. The Vienna Philharmonic under Riccardo Muti played superbly with a progressive choice of programme.