Grüner Veltliner – no one-hit wonder
An excerpt from Daring pairings by Evan Goldstein
daring pairings by Evan Goldstein
It’s apropos that this fashionable wine goes by the sobriquet 'Groo-vee' when ordered by wine and food lovers in chic restaurants. Riesling never got this much respect!
This grape has been around for a while, but only of late has it been treated like the 'It' girl just off the plane from Vienna. But given how well grüner veltliner pairs with an extensive range of food, this girl seems like she’ll be around for a while, like Catherine Deneuve, rather than being a one-hit wonder, like RuPaul.
Alternative Names Grüner, grunmuskateller, manhardrebe, mouhardsrebe, weissgipfler (Austria), veltlin zelene (Czech Republic), veltini (Hungary)
Styles Medium- to medium-full-bodied dry white, medium- to medium-full-bodied off-dry white, medium-full-bodied dessert white
Sometimes Blended With Except in generic table wines and sparkling wines (sekt in Austria), this grape is not blended.
Flavor Lexicon Fruit/vegetable: Cardoon, celery or celery root, citrus (lemon, yellow grapefruit), cucumber, green bean, green melon, lemon rind, lentil. Floral: Caraway. Earth: Mineral. Other: Musk, white pepper
Similar Sips Dry riesling, or a spicy version of vernaccia, verdicchio, or other Italian wine of similar quality. Off-dry interpretations are similar to late-harvest German rieslings.
Where It’s Grown Austria (Donauland, Kamptal, Kremstal, Wachau, Weinviertel), Czech Republic, New Zealand (Central Otago), U.S.A. (California: multiple appellations)
The wine gods got it right when they set grüner veltliner in Austria. Not only does it perform well throughout Austria’s many wine regions (except Styria), but it represents one-third of all grapes grown in that country. Long enjoyed in Vienna’s Heurigen, or wine taverns, it is being consumed increasingly in restaurants everywhere. Fortunately there’s plenty to go around, and most of it is well made. The best wines come from the Wachau, Kamptal, and Kremstal, though it would be splitting hairs to identify any one of these regions as the best. The wines share a wonderful combination of flavors, which can range from lemon cucumber to green bean, brown lentil to white pepper, framed by lemony acid and balanced alcohol. It’s unique and very appealing: once you’ve tasted a good example, you’ll always recognize the wine, much like a gewürztraminer from Alsace. Region and vineyard are key factors in the wine’s complexity, as is the ripeness of the fruit. As with German wines, grüners are categorized and labeled by these criteria, so picking out a wine that appeals to your tastes should be easy – once you’ve brushed up on your German vocabulary!
Grüner is only now gaining popularity outside Austria. Though it’s been produced for a long time in neighboring countries like the Czech Republic and Hungary, far less is planted outside Europe. There have been only a few efforts in the New World, chiefly in New Zealand and in California’s Napa Valley (Rudy von Strasser grows it on Napa Valley’s Diamond Mountain). Given its growing popularity, though, I expect we’ll be seeing more of it soon.
Vintner’s Choices Aged vs. not aged, dry vs. sweet, grown anywhere in the vineyard vs. in a specific site, harvested when ripe vs. less ripe, oak vs. no oak
Grüner veltliner can range in style from lean and mean to full and fat. At its best it’s somewhere in between, a wine of elegance and refinement. It has the focused quality of a great European or Australian dry riesling and is as subtly complex. Most GV is dry (trocken). As with German wines, these wines are broken into three categories: tafelwein (table wine), qualitätswein (wine of quality), and prädikatswein ('certified' wine). The last two categories are determined by the higher sugar content of the grape must (unfermented grape juice). Also as with German wines, sweeter styles are categorized, from kabinett, for which the perception of sugar is likely to be just off-dry, to spätlese, to auslese and trockenbeereneauslese, which are really darn sweet. Austria has a unique category called ausbruch, which lies somewhere between auslese and trockenbeerenauslese. In wines from the Wachau region, three other terms are used: steinfeder for the lightest examples of the variety; federspiel for the more developed and elegant interpretations, with more viscosity and focus; and smaragd for the ripest and most expressive examples. As a rule, the more information you see on the label, the more sense of place you can expect the wine to have. The best wines can be traced to a specific vineyard, and, if you know the vineyard, even more specific parcels within it.
As with riesling and other similar aromatic white varietals, some vintners age their wines in small oak barrels to add texture and flavor. You’ll know them when you taste them, and the label will likely give some warning (the word barrique is a giveaway). As with all wines, oakaged grüners need special attention in pairing with food.
As GV ages, it picks up layers of complexity and a deeper, more complex mineral character but still maintains its unique flavor profile. I prefer my grüners young and vibrant, but they are quite interesting after some time in the bottle, and the best ones do age gracefully.
Reproduced with permission of University of California Press © Evan Goldstein 2010
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Daring Pairings by Evan Goldstein is published by University of California Press (Berkeley and LA; 2010; hb 353 pp) and retails for RRP US$34.95 or RRP A$55.95 in Australia.
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