Durstein and the Safran Farm

Wednesday, October 31, 2018

Melk and Durstein, Austria

Today we sailed through the beautiful Wachau Valley. To quote from the trip guide…

“Over the ions the Danube cut a gorge through the foothills of the Bohemian Mountains, resulting in a 19-mile (30-Kilometer) stretch of riverine scenery so beautiful, UNESCO declared it a World Heritage Landscape. Castle ruins dominate hilltops; baroque church towers appear on the river banks, marking historic villages and splendid abbeys; and vineyards and apricot orchards cling to the rocky slopes.

Every word is true. It was an beautiful cruise.We first docked for a short while at the little town of Melk to see the Abbey. It was a long climb in a short time so I passed, but couldn’t wait for our next stop, Durstein (with an umlaut over the ‘u.’) Not only is it wine and apricot country, but nestled in the middle of the vineyards and orchards is a remarkable phenomenon.

To quote from the trip guide again:

Crusaders planted the first saffron crocuses in the Wachau Valley at the end of the 12th century, making saffron a valued crop for 700 years--but it disappeared from the terraced hillsides early in the 20th century. It wasn’t until 2007 that an ecologist found mention of it in an 18th-century document at Melk Abbey’s celebrated library. Bernard Karr, who spent years researching the history of saffron and still more years cultivating the world’s only bio-dynamically certified saffron, is one of the Wachau’s most important producers.

After a short bus ride from the ship (Bernard was narrating and said, “About two minutes...maybe one depending on the bus driver.”) we reached Durstein. A short walk up the hill led to an old train station that had been re-purposed into his safran (the German word for saffron) factory. He said we couldn’t see the saffron fields for two reasons...one, they had just finished the harvest, but more importantly if they were easily seen tourists would destroy them trying to pick the flowers.

His talk was fascinating. He showed us how to tell fake saffron from the real saffron. Real saffron is always sold in tin or glass containers and has the full pistils, which are bright red. Fake is sold more to color the food yellow (which is really incidental to a real chef who knows saffron.) It also is mostly ground and in clear containers (or mounds in the street markets) and the shelf life is measured in weeks. Packaged in tin or in glass inside a light proof box the shelf life is about two years.

One gram makes hundreds of cakes, or chocolates. To infuse the pistils always use a few drops of milk to one or two strands ground in a ceramic mortar and pestle.That’s enough to serve a family of two to four.

He had other fascinating details about growing it. Any raised planting bed with well-drained soil (ph +/-6) will do. And any area that has vineyards will also support commercial production. It requires about an acre to be commercially viable.

They grow it on the steepest slopes where vineyards aren’t productive, and use dozens (hundreds??) of college students to hand pick it. The flowers open in the middle of the night so they never know how many they must harvest until sunrise and the dew has dissipated. There can be no more than six hours between harvesting and drying. The secret to high quality saffron is in the drying process and he has patented a machine that takes it through two or three drying cycles before packaging.

He sells his saffron all over the world from the internet, but right now his profit comes from selling saffron infused chocolate, honey, and cakes sold only in season. He also sells saffron plants, too.

Truly this one was one of the highlights of the cruise.

Pictures: Wachau Valley pictures from my stateroom, vineyards, and pictures of the lecture.

Reflections: How often genius is denigrated. He was told saffron had never been grown in the valley and that he was crazy. Soon, with the changing weather patterns the vineyards will run out of water for irrigation. Saffron needs no irrigation and he says in his lifetime it will be the only crop in the valley. Once again God uses the most unlikely people for his purposes.