Districtus Austriae Controllatus

DAC winegrowing regions, as of May 2020
Winegrowing regions without DAC status, as of May

Districtus Austriae Controllatus (Latin, 'Controlled District of Austria'), DAC, is a classification for regionally typical quality wine (legal category "Qualitätswein") in Austria. It is loosely modelled on the French Appellation d'Origine Contrôlée (AOC) system,[1] and is coupled with a ripeness-based classification scale that shares a lot of nomenclature with the German Prädikat system. Thus, if a label states the winegrowing region followed by the letter combination “DAC” (e.g. Kamptal DAC) we are talking about a regionally typical quality wine. All Austrian quality wines have a round, red and white striped "Banderole" on the capsule, which ensures, that it has been inspected and approved by the government tasting authority and fulfills the requirements for “Qualitätswein”, such as maximum yields per hectare, minimum must weight and alcohol levels and guaranteed origin of the grapes.[2]

DACs are created for specific regions to establish clearly the local stylistic profile, in alignment with the French concept of terroir. Like in AOC, DAC wines are labelled only with the regional name and not the varietal unless more than one varietal is allowed. Wines carrying the name of a grape variety or a vintage year must be composed of at least 85% of that grape or vintage, respectively.[3]

  1. ^ DAC (Districtus Austriae Controllatus) Archived 2019-06-29 at the Wayback Machine on austrianwine.com, accessed 2019-07-30
  2. ^ "Wine with protected designation of origin". www.austrianwine.com. Retrieved 2019-07-30.
  3. ^ Robinson, Janis (2006). The Oxford Companion to Wine. Oxford University Press. pp. 53, 222. ISBN 0198609906.