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Melusine Gruner Veltliner Lyra 2005

My first encounter with the wines of Melusine: Marion Ebner's cult Gruner Veltliner from the Kamptal. As written in Schildknecht's review, Frau Ebner had (has?) [NOTE: had] a gig at the Austrian wine chain Wein & Co and that's how she got the ticket to source a few grapes from one of the Kamptal's best vineyards. While the exact source of the grapes seems to be sort of guarded (?), there's plenty of information on the web that suggests the fruit comes from Schloss Gobelsburg, though Frau Ebner is allowed to tend the few parcels she's been "lent." If anyone has further information, I'd be curious. In any event, only a few hundred bottles come into the country a year and I was happy a friend had saved a bottle for me to try. This is a big wine, brooding and massive with really incredible concentration. Anytime the Lyras come out, watch out because the phenolics are damn near tangible. Sappy, dark, warm melon fruits, honeysuckle, flowers, powdered dark minerals all backed up and sort of balanced by buckets of stones and with a great herbal complexity including that white pepper snap of Gruner. While this is impressive juice that is well put together for sure, the form does feel sort of monolithic. I'd definitely like to revisit before any massive conclusions are made... The cork is very cool - featuring the stamp of a rather provocative mermaid. Just FYI.