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Vienna's Heurige Offer Affordable Wine, Food and Music
One of the first things that comes to mind at the mention of Vienna is it's famous coffee houses, where citizens and visitors have met for centuries to chat, read, and sip strong dark coffee, perhaps with a bit of pastry and Slagobers (whipped cream).
The coffee house is so much a part of the culture that it is sometimes referred to as Vienna's living room. If so, it must then follow that the city's backyard, garden, and family room is the heuriger, that extraordinary system of gemütlich wine taverns.
It all started a couple of hundred years ago-August 17, 1784 at 2:04 in the afternoon, to be precise, when Maria Theresa's son, Emperor Joseph II, made an historic speech that was to bring untold happiness - and a few headaches - to countless generations of Viennese. "Every man," he decreed, "will have the freedom to sell or dispense - year-round, in any form, at any time, and at whatever price he wants - wine, food or fruit juice that he has produced himself." And so came the Law of the Heuriger.
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The old privileges (since incorporated into the civic statutes of modern Vienna) grant vintners the right to serve in their own taverns the wine they have cultivated and processed themselves. By law the tavern may only be open no more than 300 days a year (though many have been granted restaurant licenses and are open every day) and is prohibited from selling any other beverages, including beer, soft drinks or coffee. A plaque, attesting to it's official status as a heuriger, hangs outside each establishment.
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