The dawning of the age of Austrian wine

At a loess for words. Exceptional multi-vintage #grunerveltliner tasting with thanks to @austrianwine

On Tuesday, October 27th, 2015 Grüner Veltliner supervened in Toronto. It was long past due for the community of Sommeliers, Media and Austrian advocates to convene for the purpose of a vertical tasting followed by an Austrian wine bar of product currently available in Ontario. An ausbreitung of the highest Grüner order. I was fortunate to be a part of the Spoke Club fest and thought it high time I said something about it.

The Austrian Wine Fair comes to Toronto’s St. James Cathedral, Library & Snell Hall on April 14th, 2016. The Austrian Wine Marketing Board and 30 Austrian vintners will be showcasing 165 wines, to media, trade and in partnership with WineAlign, to an evening reception for consumers.

The Schedule

Tutored Tasting for Sommeliers and Media, 11 AM – 12:30 PM.

Trade Walk-Around Tasting for trade professionals only, 12:00 PM – 4:30 PM.

Austrian Wines – A Taste of Culture, consumer tasting 4:30 PM – 6:30 PM. Only $55 for WineAlign members (regular cost is $60). Reserve your tickets here.

WineAlign’s John Szabo, MS has this to say. “Austria has a terrific culture of wine, producing and drinking. Beyond the world’s best Grüner Veltliner, you’ll also find astonishing Riesling, as well as more exotic white grapes with singular flavours. But it’s the Austrian reds – Blaufränkisch, St. Laurent & co. – that may shock you most, in tune with the zeitgeist of the modern drinker. I look forward to reconnecting with the folks who make them.”

For more information contact Birgitta Samarvarchian, toronto@advantageaustria.org, 416 967 3348. The closing date for registration is April 13, 2016.

Traditionally known for its white wines, few realize that one third of Austria’s vineyards are planted to red. At the Austrian tasting an educational seminar will feature flights of the three red aces, the indigenous grape varieties Zweigelt, Blaufränkisch and St. Laurent, plus a rare flight of Austrian Pinot Noir. Two years ago I concurred:

“The whites, mainly centered around the signature variety Grüner Veltliner, showed the mineral and salinity so necessary to the grape’s success. Reds made from Zweigelt and Blaufränkisch are Austria’s trump card, ready and willing to take on the world’s reds imbued of elegance and finesse.”

Related – A ramp to Austrian wine

Back to that October tasting. Outside of making the trip to Vienna and forging an itinerary that includes no less than a dozen high profile producers who generously agree to crack open some older vintages, what other setting could present Grüner Veltliner in such light? The age ability recognition factor knocked another one off the bucket list and opened new doors to perception. If for no other reason, and there are many, he Austrian tasting coming to Toronto should not be missed.

On the road w: @zoltanszabo & @tonyaspler we concur. Expert overture @austrianwine #grunerveltliner via @johnszabo

Flight #1

Stift Göttweig Grüner Veltliner Göttweiger Berg 2014, Kremstal, Austria

Freshness, with a minimal amount of Co2, herbal certainly, with pears and stones. The fruit finale is up, up and away. Very flavourful, almost tropical Grüner.

Fritsch Grüner Veltliner Ried Steinberg Ruppersthal 2014, Wagram, Austria

Has a candied meets medicinal nose and more than its share of mineral to taste. Lingers with a sweetness that is not sugar. It’s a tang derived from grape tannin.

Weixelbaum Grüner Veltliner Reserve Ried Wechselberg 2013, Kamptal, Austria

Very ripe, so tropical to nose and smells like candy floss, like enticing spun sugar. Mouthfeel is more like unoaked Chardonnay. Global entry strategy for Grüner to take the market by fresh storm turns exit strategy without reason.

Edlmoser Grüner Veltliner Ried Himmel 2013, Wien, Austria

The mineral expression of the young Grüner. Elemental and metallic. Good range of motion, right side of the mineral tracks. Really fine tracking and length.

Liegenfeld Grüner Veltliner Ried Himmelriech 2013, Burgenland, Austria

Full-ish and bullish, especially in flight comparison. Quite the fruit monster here, with a sugarless sour candy sensation and savoury linger. An eastern European cough candy with enough subtlety to keep it from crossing any uncomfortable lines. The outlier.

Flight #2

Holzapfel Grüner Veltliner Smaragd Ried Achleiten 2012, Wachau, Austria

A tiny bit of botrytis giving off a mushroom and truffle note, perfect at this stage for a ’12 though it will likely increase going forward, possibly at the compromise of the stellar fruit and even deeper mineral passion play. This is an intense wine with acidity that may be waning but the wine cuts a deep and serious bowie wound. The lees really rules and reigns in the rest. Turns to cider after 10-15 minutes. Changes. “Oh, yeah, Mmm. Still don’t know what I was waitin’ for. And my time was runnin’ wild.”

Domäne Wachau Grüner Veltliner Smaragd Ried Kellerberg 2012, Wachau, Austria

Quite stoic, clear, clean, steely, like unoaked Chablis. Wondering where the lees are in this, how much and for how long because it has that distinct mineral tang that lees will give to a wine made like this. Exemplary but simple. Though the acidity is low so it finishes fat. Still, proper and simple.

FJ Gritsch Mauritiushof Grüner Veltliner Smaragd Ried Singerriedel 2012, Wachau, Austria

This has the candied nose, the tropical fruit and the lactic feel. Quite a mouthful of same flavours in repeat on top of the aromatics and an overall layered tang. Like those white blends again.

Leth Grüner Veltliner Ried Scheiben “1ÖTW” 2012, Wagram, Austria

Powerful loess in concentration, smells like scraped wet soft tuff-like rocks, almost powdery and not a fruit-driven Grüner. Better acidity than some and finishing bitters. The first to do so.

Allram Grüner Veltliner Reserve Ried Gaisberg “1ÖTW” 2011, Kamptal DAC, Austria

Age is creeping in, with a petrol and tannic note that take this into steep slope, white stoicism. The slate is really in, the acacia barrel giving a near-nutty note and certainly white flower distillate. Like eau de vivre. Got a spark.

Salomon Undhof Grüner Veltliner Reserve “Von Stein” 2010, Kremstal DAC, Austria

Gas and stone again, with more verve and life. The first to give soil funk without sweetness or botrytis. A slight Co2 note, a spark, very mineral character. Old vines give concentration, rocks do tannin and acidity lingers nicely. Got stein. Old Riesling reduction and energy equals implosive energy. Flight #2 really speaks to the loess and here is it definitely on high.

Flight #3

Rudi Pichler Grüner Veltliner Smaragd Ried Wösendorfer Hochrain 2008, Wachau, Austria

A fine slow decline in grace, elegance, bald, striking. Here the reason not to fear and for any and all decisions to protract age from Grüner. There has been no discernible deterioration and without a doubt the cleanest fruit in its original state. No flaws. So in that sense an ageless wonder. Strikes as so much younger; colour, aroma, flavour, tannin and linger. Ageless.

Brundlmayer Grüner Veltliner Reserve Ried Lamm 2007, Kamptal DAC, Austria

Certainly showing age here, through all its components and has a sugary gaseous feel. Says Trocken so I wonder what the RS really is. Mineral and acidity are in great interplay. Good length. Really smart and necessary look into aged Grüner. Reductive torque from a top vineyard. The French paradox in analogy is Sémillon.

Hiedler Grüner Veltliner “Familienreserve” 2006, Kamptal, Austria

There was some dirty fruit here, past its prime, late harvest certainly, smelling of tropical fruit past ferment and into decay. But, there is acidity so there is life. Lots of bitters. Some volatility. In a way, The Frick of Austria. Heavy lees, acacia barrels. No fining, no filtration, some biodynamic principals applied to grape growing.

Malat Grüner Veltliner “Das Beste vom Veltliner” 1999, Kremstal, Austria

I find this so much fun at 16 years of age with burnt orange, caramel, white pepper, spices, and an elemental, aerified glory that is some kind of serious inhalant and intoxicant. Late harvest again, clementine segments of flavour, with citrus acidity and great mental acuity. Great bitters. This is on par with some aged Alsace, somewhere between Riesling and Gewürztraminer. Weighs in and integrates its 19 g/L of RS with distinction.

Flight #4

Herbert Zillinger Grüner Veltliner Reserve “Radikal” 2013, Weinviertel DAC, Austria

Oxidative, spontaneous ferment, leading to tang upon tang. The methodology has led to tannin in layers, some orange segment and bitters. Acidity is not striking and its aridity means drink this early.

Geyerhof Grüner Veltliner “wildlux” 2013, Kremstal DAC, Austria

I get terpenes, like cool-climate Chardonnay, well, more cool than Chardonnay and then it gains in salinity, sea salts, brine, groove but not necessarily mineral. Has real verve, life and yet again, not for age. Known for their natural winemaking.

Zillinger Johannes Grüner Veltliner “Numen” 2013, Osterreich, Austria

Amphorae wine, old vines, certainly oxidative, thick texture from lees, but there is acidity. Orange again and edgy, with a piercing limestone tang that runs directly through. Numen “natural spirit inhabiting a place or just natural genius (of spirit).” No external intervention.

Sepp Moser Grüner Veltliner Ried Schnabel “Minimal” 2013, Weinland, Austria

Here is the Alsatian Grüner, natural and with the addition of slow micro-oxidation of old barrels. Eighteen months seems almost on the lee side of time, as we find so much preserved lemon and a lack of Grüner impression. Certified biodynamic. “Will not meet the expectations of wine consumers today.” Dill pickle meets a tomato of volatility.

Wimmer-Czerny Grüner Veltliner “Pur” 2012, Wagram, Austria

Hard to believe this is only 2 g/L of RS. Real Muscat character in aromatics and again terpenes but with a naturally oxidative bent.

One in the April 2nd, VINTAGES release

Loimer Grüner Veltliner 2014, Dac Kamptal, Austria (142240, $21.95, WineAlign)

Flat out delicious Grüner Veltliner with a nice split between fruit and mineral, mas o menos, neither really leading the other. Citrus and a bit of an airy, gravel feel. Drink 2016-2019. Tasted March 2016 @LeSommelierWine @FredLoimer

Good to go!

Twitter: @mgodello

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Is writing making a mess of wine?

Jan27

Rave Review

Wine today is suffocated by an industrial and disproportionate number of writers, critics, reviewers and judges. There are so many voices vying for airtime, filling up virtual white pages with their comments, feelings and dissertations. There are homers and there are curmudgeons. When in balance, both keep the ship afloat, but more often than not the questions begs. Which ones are causing the wreck? The answer is both. The problem is not the intent but rather the execution.

You may have noticed that when I write about wine, which is pretty much all of the time, I use a whole lot of words. A mess of vocabulary. An inordinate amount of adjectives. A boundless number of references to music, song and pop culture. It’s how I roll. And it has got me thinking, again.

Tis’ about that time of year. A period for reflection and review, not on what was so great in the previous vintage but about the things that will be critical going forward in this new one. Please excuse the interlude while I hang suspended within the interval of hermeneutic, contemplation and debate. Reading books on anthropology, art world shenanigans and a post-holocaust personal journey are seeping into my thoughts like Sémillon into Sauvignon Blanc and the varietal blend is coming up complicated.

Old guard tasting notes are losing their relevance and not because they are wrong or inaccurate. They just don’t speak to wine in the 21st century. They don’t tell a story and they surely don’t have any fun. So what? Imagine taking a video of yourself working on your computer, browsing the internet, reading and interacting on social media. What would you see? A world of links and associations. A world where thoughts and comments bounce around like children in a jumpy castle. This is the realm of the new tasting note. This is what wine can do for you in the 21st century. It can lead you forward and take you back. Most of all it can really tie your life together.

Then the whining. The constant shrill voice of conceit mixed with complaint. The words minced to poison with a hunger to attack. Paragraphs penned to warn of apocalypse and to relegate decent writers to the scrap heap and back to the depressing nine to five. Writers reacting only to what others do without creating anything of their own. Comedians of the wine world lashing out, ranting, shouting “got ’em, need ’em, hate ’em.”

These attitudes and still the truth is not to be ignored. Reading a wine through a tasting note is like kissing a woman through a veil. “Translation is a kind of transubstantiation,” where one wine becomes another and another. You can choose your philosophy of critiquing just as you choose how to live. The freedom to personalize or substantiate thoughts on structure sacrifices the detail to meaning and meaning to preciseness. The winemaker is the writer or poet, moving from vines to vinous language. The critic moves in the opposite direction, or should, by attempting to read between the lines, to identify what can’t be seen, to interpret the mysterious implications of smell, taste and texture.

The lede firmly and flatly backs the headline, states, if asks, “is writing making a mess of wine?” Yes, that is a double entendre, a loaded gun of meaning and hypothesis, a million dollar question. While we want to know who’ll stop the rain, we also desperately need to understand the meaning of wine. So we put it down in words. We explain how wonderful life is with wine in the world. We also break it down, grape by grape, to a point where it often lies broken, disassembled, deconstructed, left for naked. What is it for? Are wine writers leaving behind a city of ruins?

Have they decided and determined that the winemaker’s works can be used to make a point? A point that belongs to the critic? Has the wine writer taken away the artist’s right to be, has the intent been obscured, or worse, the opposite and turned it into a curator’s right?

There are wines that claim you and wines that warn you away. Maybe the writers are just looking for wine that would teach them everything, like searching for one language, just as some would look for one woman’s face. The combined fugitive pieces of wine and its critics pose “questions without answers.” They must be asked very slowly.

To the beleaguered point five wines are here venerated and disfigured, assessed and cut to size. They are sniffed and sipped, thought of in song and regurgitated on the page. Do they lift or bury their maker’s plan? You be the judge.

From left to right: Susana Balbo Signature Barrel Fermented Torrontés 2014, Sterling Vineyards Pinot Noir 2012, Nyarai Cellars Cadence 2011, Wieninger Nußberg Alte Reben Gemischter Satz 2012, Tabarrini Colle Grimaldesco Montefalco Sagrantino 2009

Susana Balbo Signature Barrel Fermented Torrontés 2014, Uco Valley, Mendoza, Argentina (384339, $17.95, WineAlign)

Here, from Dominio del Plata, an experiment with clear merit. The attributes are so sizeable, with weight depth and no compromise. The dramatic effect works to ignore the “clouds of mystery pourin’ confusion on the ground.” The floral aromatic integrity of Torrontés is upheld within the leaden shackles of the wood, as is the savour. This is a honeyed white, suckling and mellifluous, like fully extracted ripe Sémillon, from and with the benefit of a warm vintage. Puts the fun back into varietal revival by way of a giant leap up from the thin, medicinal water clogging the arteries of South American white wines so often put to market. Here is a Torrontés to stop the rain. Tasted January 2015 @ddpwinery @ProfileWineGrp

Sterling Vineyards Pinot Noir 2012, Napa Valley, California (424179, $19.95, WineAlign)

There are so many reasons not to find a thrill in this regional blend of Pinot Noir fruit but none of them stick. Sweetness, simple syrup silky fruit, brown sugar, every red and purple berry in all varieties of fields (plus ripe plums) and warm to temperate alcohol (14.5 per cent declared) all combine for full California sunshine effect. All this and I just can’t turn away. With all the excess fruit, texture and multiplicity in good times, how can I? I ask this Pinot, “how come you, how come you dance so good?” The answer lies in the feel and the ability to turn a Noir trick or two. Not to mention a rolling of barrels and Napa Valley stones through its very core. Well done. Tasted January 2015 @sterlingwines @Diageo_News

Nyarai Cellars Cadence 2011, VQ Niagara Peninsula, Ontario (Winery, $21.95, WineAlign)

Steve Byfield’s crimson blend of Cabernet Franc (42 per cent), Merlot (33), Cabernet Sauvignon (20) and Syrah (5) is at once so very Niagara while acting out anomalously in the 2011 vintage. Ripe, extracted fruit appears warm-vintage drawn, with its coated layers of primer, brushstroke and plummy stone fruit. The warmth is tempered by savour, oranges, figs and psalms. Its ability to find cadence and cascade keeps it “cool in the shade.” The varietal combining is delineated in balance, “sliding mystify, on the wine of the tide.” This effort, with its new name, could become one of the king’s amongst Ontario blends. Tasted January 2015 @NyaraiCellars

Wieninger Nußberg Alte Reben Gemischter Satz 2012, Vienna, Austria (Agent, $40.00, WineAlign)

Here, the intensity of multi-varietal wine defined. From next to the Danube, out of the Ulm Vineyard, on a very steep southern slope on the eastern part of the Nussberg. The composition is nine-fold; Weissburgunder, Neuburger, Welschriesling, Grüner Veltliner, Sylvaner, Zierfandler, Rotgipfler, Traminer and Riesling. The aridity (1.3 g/L RS) is visionary. Beneath the vineyard there is coral from the tertiary period and in this wine you can hear the Geiger counter amplifying the faint eupnea of fossilized shells, thousands of years ago. Its resinous, sappy and majestic floating flowers are like “potions in a traveling show.” The layering is heavy (14.5 per cent ABV) and variegated, like sands and snails in a bottle or a vessel filled with an alcohol made from nature’s natural and fermenting bounty; carboniferous forest cosmology and the unpronounceable names of exotic fruit. Then there is the wooden smoulder, the white rock solder, the pine and the scene where “I sat on the roof and kicked off the moss.” The Gemischter Satz is granular but in liquid form, marbled and with a lovely wisp of oxidation. It exudes lemon custard and tonic in a wild yet beautiful breath of sauvage. It is your song. Tasted January 2015

Tabarrini Colle Grimaldesco Montefalco Sagrantino 2009, Docg Umbria, Italy (403139, $49.95, WineAlign)

Here thickness is applied in every way imaginable. Sagrantino from the maw of the beast; raw, big-boned, musky, chewing sinew and spitting out teeth. Though fierce and ancient, eliciting vegetal scents as if Pliny’s natural history were scoured for every trace of pungent plants grown in iron rich earth, it is also the most modern expression of Umbria, or all of Italy even. In so many ways it’s pretty Gestanko, composted and of an incomparable spume. But it also desensitizes and endears in a soulful, ethereal way “like scattered leaves,” blowing in a stiff breeze. It folds back the skin of time, in waves of heat and at times is so very sweet. Bring this to the apocalyptic marshmallow roast. Leaves the red wine city in ruins and in the dust. Sagrantino at 16.5 %. Burn, baby burn. Tasted January 2015 @TrialtoON @TABARRINI

Good to go!

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