Austrian revolution

The glass is always grüner

by Thor Iverson

UNCORKED

Click here for a rundown of wine tastings, dinners, and events.

Expectations are funny things. What we know about wine is the combination of two factors: what we learn, and our cumulative "palate memory." We exercise the latter when selecting a wine to buy or drink, remembering our impressions of a wine, a grape, a producer, or an appellation. Unfortunately, our palate memory is prone to what R&B singer Lauryn Hill accurately termed "miseducation." Wine styles can, and do, change.

Take the Austrian grape grüner veltliner (groo-nur velt-lee-nur). It's planted just about everywhere that Austria has vines, in such quantities that one is tempted to assume it's meant for bulk wine. Indeed, here's noted wine writer Jancis Robinson on the grape: " . . . the wine it produces is almost always good, but never great. It is almost incapable of not giving pleasure and delight, but would never warrant intellectual study." And here's Hugh Johnson: "To compare it with a Rhine riesling is like comparing a wild flower with a finely bred garden variety."

Johnson goes on: "There are times, when grüner veltliner wine is drawn straight from the barrel into a tumbler, frothing and gleaming a piercing greeny gold, when it seems like the quintessence of all that a wine should be." And up until recently, Johnson was completely right. Grüner was a light, peppery, acidic white -- sometimes with a faint CO₂ spritz -- best quaffed chilled with simple food. In other words, what the French would call a "bistro wine," like most Beaujolais, Provençal rosé, and Portuguese vinho verde. When the wine is done in that style -- and just about anything in the US market at the $10-or-under price point is -- it is indeed a perfect summer party wine.

Move up a few dollars, however, and on top of that peppery aggressiveness there will be a piercing minerality, ripe fruit, great acidic structure, and a long finish. In other words, a wine that pretty much demands some time in the cellar.

Why the metamorphosis? A few producers realized that the grape -- like the gamay of Beaujolais, which can be anything from insipid to intense -- had the potential, with proper care in the vineyard and winery, to be nearly as majestic as riesling (which Austria also does very well). So now, GV is available in both styles, in addition to a few still-rare late-harvest versions. Better yet, GV is really versatile with food, pairing well with just about anything that can take a white wine.

And, thanks to the work of a few specialty importers (Terry Theise, in particular) and a few aficionados at the retail level, there's now a nice range of grüner veltliners available in the Boston area. Here are a few worth trying:

1997 Loibner Schütt Grüner Veltliner Wachau ($8.99). Salt, white pepper, and celery, with an almost kelp-like aroma and a nice lemon-lime finish. Some spritz, and it might need a few months to come together.

1996 Dinstlgut Loiben Grüner Veltliner Loibner Loibenberg ($9.99). The easy-drinking kind of GV, with a sharp lemon-apple flavor, a white-pepper bite, and a slight spritz.

1994 Dinstlgut Loiben Grüner Veltliner Loibenberg Trocken Wachau ($10.99). Fiesta! Mango, pineapple, banana, peaches, cream . . . and then big petrol and mineral police come and break up the party. That's okay, though, because this overstuffed wine is going to age.

1996 Nigl Grüner Veltliner Senftenberger Piri Kremstal ($12.99). A truly exotic nose of lime rind, clementine, honeycomb, and dandelion dusted by minerals. A citrus tang builds and builds to the leafy, tearingly acidic finish. Probably needs time, but the acidity is a bit worrying.

1995 Weingut Bründlmayer Grüner Veltliner Alte Reben Langenlois Kamptal ($17.99). Heavy minerality, but a light honeysuckle, lemon, and floral deftness keeps it all in balance. Another tropical fiesta, with coconut and cream thrown in, and a nearly endless finish. Drink now, or in five years, or in ten . . . this is a truly great wine.

1996 Nigl Grüner Veltliner Alte Reben Kremstal ($19.99). Absolutely tremendous. Every citrus and yellow/orange fruit flavor you can think of, minerals, spun sugar, earth, freshly-cut flowers, white truffle, cider, and a threatening finish of iron filings. Exquisite now, better in a few years.

---

The congressional battle over direct-mail shipments of wine has ratcheted up yet another notch. With bills and amendments now in conference committee, the ability of consumers to choose how they get their wine is perilously close to being lost.

All along, wholesalers -- whose business is threatened by direct shipping -- have been objecting to the idea by waving the flag of child protection. But their outright rejection of a proposal by Senator Dianne Feinstein that would directly address that issue (by requiring proof of age when signing for alcohol shipments) reveals their insincerity. Mothers Against Drunk Driving recognized the wholesalers' hypocrisy by pulling out of an alliance with the wholesalers' front group, Americans for Responsible Alcohol Access (ARAA), last month, calling the current legislative action "a battle between various elements within the alcoholic-beverages industry."

And then there was the disgusting attempt to hide their avarice behind the Columbine tragedy. Barry McCahill, ARAA's executive director, said "we urge the president to broaden his search for solutions to youth violence to include the abuse of alcohol by teenagers and the illegal commerce that is making it easy for them to get alcohol. . . . Incredibly, there is not one word from the White House about . . . the $1 billion plus in bootleg alcohol that makes it easy for today's cyber-savvy teenagers to get beer, wine, or liquor with no questions asked."

Wine by mail leads to school shootings? Really?

This sort of rhetoric is, unfortunately, having a serious effect in Congress, where wholesalers' organizations outspend pro-shipping lobbyists five to one. Read more about this issue at Wine Today (http://winetoday.com), the Wine Institute (http://wineinstitute.org/), or Free the Grapes (http://freethegrapes.org/), and remember: it's not about children, it's about greed.

Thor Iverson can be reached at wine[a]phx.com.

---

The Uncorked archive

---