Burgenland could well be taken as a sign of the Soviet Union towards opening the borders to the Western countries, starting in the late 1970s. Despite Burgenland (especially the area around Neusiedler See) always producing excellent wine, some vintners in Burgenland added illegal substances to their wine in the mid-1980s. When this was revealed, Austria's wine exports dwindled dramatically. After recovering from the scandal, vintners in Austria, not only in Burgenland, started focusing on quality and mostly stopped producing poor quality wine. On 27 July 1989, the Foreign ministers of Austria and Hungary, Alois Mock and Gyula Horn, cut the Iron
Au, Vorarlberg Au, Vorarlberg Au is a town in the Bregenz Forest in the Austrian state of Vorarlberg, part of the district of Bregenz. The town belongs to the Bregenz Forest, more exactly to the "Hintere Bregenzerwald". Forty percent of its 45 km² area is covered with forest, 34.4% of the area is used as alpine pasture ("Almwirtschaft") and for other forms of alpine agriculture. The town itself is unlike others in the area, as it has no real centre. It consists of several districts, which are (in no particular order): Argenau, Wieden, Lugen, Lebernau, Rehmen, Schrecken, Kreuzgasse, Jaghausen, Am Stein, Argenstein,