Gruner Veltliner Question

Quite a few years ago, our local monopoly began to bring in Austrian wines. Few of us had any significant experience with them, and many of us threw ourselves into the fray with gusto, myslef among them.

After a couple of years, interest abated and fewer Austrian wines were imported here, though I do still try to keep my hand in with them.

Someone nominating the grape as a first class grape in the Friday afternoon discussion I started got me thinking about the grape again.

If here are any GV fanatics out there, can you steer me toward any of the locally available GVs, as follows:

Gobelsburger
Heidler Loss
Jurtschitsch Sonnhof Gruve (bit of a mouthful, that name)
Laurenz und Sophie Singing
Loimer Lois
Rabl Speigel

Anything leap out at you? All are reasonably priced, vintage info if you need it.

Hi Bill!

All respectable producers and the wines you mention are more or les the basic bottlings. So don't expect too much depth but rather nice and fresh uncomplicated quaffing. These are wines that will go well with a reasonable range of food and are more or less meant for immediate consumption.

Some basic info and some corrections on the spelling .

Gobelsburger

The producer is Schloss Gobelsburg, well respected winery form the Kamptal, producing a whole range of wines from quite basic to profound. They all should be at least good.

Heidler Loss

It is Hiedler. Very good winery/ Kamptal and Löss is there basic bottling.

Jurtschitsch Sonnhof Gruve (bit of a mouthful, that name)

Jurtschitsch is the winery, also well respected from the Kamptal. GrüVe is their easy quaffer with a fancy label different each year and designed by the Austrian Painter Christian Ludwig Attersee (if you care about this stuff).

Laurenz und Sophie Singing

Basic wine from one of the sons of the Lenz Moser family if I recall correctly, the winery is called Laurenz V., denoting that he is the fifth generation of this well known Austrian winery family (unfortunately not really famous for highest quality, but things have changed in the last years, I heard). A blend of grapes from Kremstal and Weinviertel.

Loimer Lois

Almost copy and paste from above. Basic bottling from a well respected Kamptal winery.

Rabl Speigel

It is Spiegel. Also from the Kamptal, Rabl is maybe a second league producer but the wine should be fine nonetheless.


Here in Austria, all these wine will probably sell well below 10Euro, so we are not talking about fancy stuff here.

Hope that helps!

Regards, Robert

Here in Austria, all these wine will probably sell well below 10Euro, so we are not talking about fancy stuff here.

We pay just under $20, so typical for our market. Wish we got some of the better ones.

[Jenise]

What leaps out at me is the absence of Nigl. Remember the time I brought an Austrian gru vee to lunch? That was a 99 Nigl, one of the upper tier wines though I don't remember which. It was spectacular, and you guys couldn't guess the wine because you'd never had what amounts to a Grand Cru level GV before, let alone a nicely aged one. THAT is a name to look/ask for. I do believe GV would be my favorite white grape if I drank more of it: it offers pretty much everything I love about reisling, sauv blanc AND chardonnay in one bottle. We have a fair representation of them down here, if you care to buy next time you're over the border.

Was the Nigl the Privat? Probably the over $20 GV I buy the most.

As Robert says, some very good producers there, just not their top bottlings. It would be like testing the greatness of PN by trying Drouhin's Laforet Bourgogne, or Saintsbury's Garnet.

Gobelsburg's Lamm would be a more serious look, or something like FX Pichler's "M"Smaragd or Hirtzberger's Rotes Tor Smaragd. Knoll's top bottlings can be profound (though I find less consistent). Hiedler, Hirsch, Alzinger, Brundlmayer- long list.

[Jenise]

Was the Nigl the Privat? Probably the over $20 GV I buy the most.

As Robert says, some very good producers there, just not their top bottlings. It would be like testing the greatness of PN by trying Drouhin's Laforet Bourgogne, or Saintsbury's Garnet.

Gobelsburg's Lamm would be a more serious look, or something like FX Pichler's "M"Smaragd or Hirtzberger's Rotes Tor Smaragd. Knoll's top bottlings can be profound (though I find less consistent). Hiedler, Hirsch, Alzinger, Brundlmayer- long list.

No, Dale, it wasn't. Did some digging and it turns out it wasn't even a Nigl, but an Alzinger, part of my first stash of mostly Alzinger and Nigls I purchased after falling in love with the grape at an Austrian tasting. Which Alzinger I can't put my finger on, the note doesn't seem to have been posted to this iteration of WLDG though I wouldn't have thought it that long ago.

Excellent comparison, btw, re the LaForet and Garnet.

Yeah, Alzinger should have been on my list, can be great wines.
Too bad re the notes that fell between the end of the old archive and this version of WLDG.

Jenise,
It was 1999 Alzinger Loibner Weingarten GV Smaragd. We drank it in October 2005.

[Jenise]

Jenise,
It was 1999 Alzinger Loibner Weingarten GV Smaragd. We drank it in October 2005.

Bless you, David!

Bill,
As Robert has already noted, these are all entry level bottlings. Of the list, I've had the Gobelsburger, Lois and Jurtschitsch and of the three I'll take the Gobelsburger hands down. You may have seen my recent note on the '07 Lois: sulfur sulfur sulfur of the burnt matchstick variety. Jurtschitsch's GrüVe just failed to impress (and the cutsie-pie name didn't help despite the Theie imprimatur). If you ever see the Domäne Wachau bottling from the Freie Weingartner cooperative, that's another cheapie worth a look.

Happy drinking!
Mark Lipton

Tegernseerhof Bergdistel

Steininger "Loisium" Loisiumweingarten Steven Holl

Anton Bauer Gruner Veltliner Grande Reserve

The first two are available for around $20, the third for around $30. Top-quality gruners, all.

If here are any GV fanatics out there, can you steer me toward any of the locally available GVs, as follows:
Gobelsburger
Heidler Loss
Jurtschitsch Sonnhof Gruve (bit of a mouthful, that name)
Laurenz und Sophie Singing
Loimer Lois
Rabl Speigel
Anything leap out at you? All are reasonably priced, vintage info if you need it.

Hi Bill, if I were you, I would save all my money to buy one magnum of 1990 Emmerich Knoll Grüner Veltliner Vinothekfüllung. This is by far the best Gruner Veltliner I have tasted in the last 25 years.