It’s made from grapes, Riesling if specified, but mostly non-specific grapes, and those grapes come from somewhere, not normally Germany or Austria, but anywhere where there’s a surplus of cheap, unwanted grapes that can’t find a home in wine, or fruit bowls. These grapes are given the choice of being juiced for juice, or for Sekt. The more flighty ones choose a short life of bubbliness. The wines are made in vast tanks. This doesn’t add up to a recipe for subtle, delicate flavours to be savoured.
Sekt is served up as an aperitif, and in Vienna we found it served as one of your five fruit portions a day with breakfast. Haus Osterreich seemed to be the popular brand of choice and at under a fiver a bottle in stores it’s easy to see why.
It tastes like Schloer – fizzy grape juice – but with a alcohol on the side. It’s sweet, it’s grapey, and it’s easy to drink a glass, but a second would be cloying.