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We believe a wine mirrors the personality of its creator, and the Melusine is fresh, direct, full of passion, and unconventional (indeed, this Gruner Veltliner sees some aging in French oak barrels, a practice not permitted in the neighboring Wachau region). We have heard that it appeals to more of an international palate, but we found that even more so, it achieves the one primary goal set out by winemaker Marion Ebner: quality without compromise. It is also like the story that inspired the name: the beautiful Melusine spirit of fresh waters in sacred springs and rivers, the mermaid siren that seduced Goethe in the tale, and now everyone else who is lucky enough to get a bottle.

• 100 % - Gruner Veltliner (AKA Weissgipfler)

Marion Ebner gets a glittering recommendation from her mentor, the Viennese master Fritz Wieninger, who tells us “Marion is quite a unique personality. Despite her youth she makes such a vivid impression—not only verbally, but she also gets it into the bottle. It’s only a very small group of individuals we could say that about, and I’m very proud of her.”

Gru?ner Veltliner is a member of the Burgundy family of grapes; it counts Traminer as one parent like Chardonnay does, which makes them cousins. And much has been made in the press—by Jancis Robinson and others—about the af- finity that GV shows with excellent white Burgundy. So it is no surprise that under the right circumstances Gru?ner Veltliner should find its way into a barrique, and then emerge months later with surprisingly delicious results.

Marion was not born to the vine, as are most Austrian vintners, but found her way there while still a teenager. By her talent alone, she has earned access to the lyra-trained vines of Schloss Gobelsburg’s Ried Lamm, whence come the Gru?ner Veltliner grapes that go to make the Melusine.

Aged for nearly a year in French barriques, Melusine is a complex, powerful and beautifully structured GV in a very elegant package—not to mention the physical package: Burgundy bottle, wax-sealed. Marion named the wine for the medieval water-nymph, to underscore its feminine and seductive traits. If the critics—both foreign and domestic—are to be believed, it comes as no surprise that we are seduced.

With more than 10,000 acres planted to the vine, Kamptal is one of the larger growing regions of Austria.
Spread around about the thriving town of Langelois, Kamptal takes its name, as does Kremstal, from the river that runs through the valley.

Kamptal is home to one of the most monumental hills of vines anywhere, the massive Heiligenstein in Zöbing. Etymologists have fun with how the hellish-hot Heissenstein turned holy into the Heiligenstein, going from the devils to the saints, as it were. This imposing natural wonder dates from the Permian period, some 270 million years ago, and is composted of weathered sandstone with volcanic highlights.
The densely terraced south face of the massif is so steep that the typical loess has never blown onto it and collected here, thus it offers particularly fine soils for growing the finicky Riesling.

This is another region where the hot Pannonian climate is tempered by the cool evening breezes coming out of the Waldviertel—which provides the grapes with a longer time to hang on their vines, developing good physiologic ripeness to complement the sugar-content.

Home to at least 160 wine estates, the region is also becoming a preferred tourist destination.