Glossary · Chemistry
Klosterneuburger Mostwaage
German. Kept in its own language here rather than translated into the nearest English word, because the nearest English word is usually cut on a different axis.
Also written KMW, °KMW, Klosterneuburg must scale. Each is a name for the same thing, which is why none of them has an entry of its own.
Definition
The Austrian must-weight scale, defined in Austrian wine law as one seventeenth of the mass content of a twenty per cent aqueous sucrose solution. One degree is about ten grams of sugar per kilogram of must.
- Subject
- Chemistry
- Language
- German
- Also written
- KMW, °KMW, Klosterneuburg must scale
In more detail
The odd-looking 1:17 is an empirical finding rather than a unit conversion. August Wilhelm Freiherr von Babo, first director of the Klosterneuburg institute, published it in 1869 after many must analyses: a grape must at 20 °Balling is usually about seventeen parts sugar to three parts everything else — acids, nitrogen compounds, minerals, phenols and aroma. The scale is that ratio applied to a density reading.
That derivation is worth carrying, because it is a fact about grapes. Nothing found establishes the ratio for pear must, where sorbitol contributes to dissolved solids and is not sugar in the fermentable sense. Tellingly, Klosterneuburg’s own perry pear trial reports °Oechsle rather than °KMW.
The institute is also unusually candid about its own instrument: it states that because of climatic and viticultural change the scale now tendenziell um 5-10% zu wenig Zucker anzeigt — tends to under-read sugar by five to ten per cent. Almost nobody repeating a °KMW figure repeats that.
One date is contested and worth knowing which way to resolve it. Klosterneuburg gives 1869 for Babo’s publication and marked the hundred and fiftieth anniversary in 2020; Österreich Wein Marketing gives 1896. They cannot both be right, and this site follows the institution that employed him.
Where this is covered properly
The glossary defines; these pages explain. Each is described in its own words.
Production
Gravity measurement
Measuring the density of juice or fermenting cider to follow sugar depletion and estimate alcohol, with the instrument limits and the perry complication that make the number less simple than it looks.
Country
Austria
Home of one of the world’s three great perry pear landscapes: in the Mostviertel, *Most* usually means a dry, tannic pear drink made from enormous standard trees standing over grazed pasture.
Related terms
Terms that belong to the same part of the subject, or that this one is routinely confused with.
Chemistry
Oechsle
A German must-weight scale: the number of grams by which a litre of juice exceeds the weight of a litre of water. A juice at 1.050 specific gravity reads 50 degrees Oechsle.
Chemistry
Brix
A scale expressing dissolved solids as grams of sucrose per hundred grams of solution. One degree Brix is approximately one per cent sugar by weight in juice.
Chemistry
Specific gravity
The density of a liquid relative to water at the same temperature. In cider it is the routine measure of dissolved sugar before fermentation and of progress during it.
Cider
Most
In German-speaking Europe, either fresh fruit juice or the fermented drink made from it. Which one it means is settled by the country you are standing in, and in Austria it is settled by statute.
Cider
Obstwein
In Austrian law, the umbrella term for every fermented fruit drink, pome fruit included. In German usage it is not a category at all — the German food code says *Fruchtwein*, and means only the non-pome ones.
Where to go next
- Cider glossary — The whole vocabulary, by subject and A–Z.
- Comparisons — Terms that are only really clear when set against the thing they are not.
- Search — Finds terms by their aliases and by their spellings in other languages.
Sources
What this page rests on. Where a source is marked as registered rather than read, CiderHQ is recording that the body is authoritative on the subject without claiming to have worked through the document itself. See our evidence policy for what each state means.
150 Jahre Klosterneuburger Mostwaage
Höhere Bundeslehranstalt und Bundesamt für Wein- und Obstbau, Klosterneuburg, published 25 June 2020 · research institute · passage verified 2026-08-25
Babo’s own institution on Babo’s own scale, which makes it the authority on both the derivation and the date. It is worth registering for the date alone: Österreich Wein Marketing gives 1896 for the publication, and Klosterneuburg gives 1869 and marked the 150th anniversary in 2020. The two cannot both be right, and this site follows the institution that employed him. Retrieved and read in full on 2026-08-25. Notable for what it volunteers: the institute states that the scale now tends to under-read sugar by 5 to 10 per cent, which is not something a body has to say about its own instrument.
Weingesetz 2009 — Bundesgesetz über den Verkehr mit Wein und Obstwein
Republic of Austria, BGBl. I Nr. 111/2009 as amended; consolidated text mirrored by the Bundeskellereiinspektion · legislation · passage verified 2026-08-25
The enabling act above the Obstweinverordnung, and the reason Austrian fruit wine sits in wine law at all: the long title is an act on the trade in wine *and fruit wine*. It also carries the statutory definition of the Klosterneuburg must scale. Read as PDF on 2026-08-25 from the federal cellar inspectorate’s mirror of the consolidated text, because the Austrian legal information system answers automated requests with a security challenge; the mirror is headed “Bundesrecht konsolidiert” and footed www.ris.bka.gv.at.