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Our latest vintages of Gruner Veltliner have arrived and are ready to land on your doorstep! We’ve picked out some real gems this year, not least because 2005 was a stand-out vintage (check out this vintage report for more details.)

For those of you just getting hip to the whole Gruner Veltliner thing, check out our Introduction to Gruner Veltliner. It will give a great overview of what Gruner Veltliner is, what Gruner Veltliner does, how Gruner Veltliner tastes, and perhaps most importantly, how to pronounce “Gruner Veltliner”. In a nutshell: Gruner Veltliner is the most widely planted white wine grape in Austria and creates a truly distinctive dry white wine with notes of stone fruits, slate, minerality, and a white pepper kick on the finish that is hard to beat. It is considered to be one of the best food-pairing wines out there, and is therefore a favorite for restaurant lists.

So where to begin?

This year, we have brought over a few more selections for “everyday” QPR (that’s cork-dork for “quality price ratio”) Gruners.

When the Gritsch Axpoint 2003 sold out in record time, we realized that more of you wanted a Gruner that you could keep on hand (or, preferably, in the fridge) to drink without feeling too precious about it. We’re right there with you. These wines have definitely become our daily go-to, and not least because they pair so well with just about anything we’re planning to cook.

We’ve brought over lots of the Axpoint 2005, as well as the Kalmuck, which is now a solo Franz-Josef Gritsch project.

Johann Donabaum has a new entry into the field: his eponymous “Johann“. If ever a winemaker was going to go with the single moniker, young Mr.Donabaum is one who can get away with it (we’ll get to his Spitzer Point wines and recent accolades later).

From Josef Hogl, we have a small amount of his Ried Schon Federspiel. Why so little? The famous Slanted Door restaurant in San Francisco grabbed as much of this wine as we were willing to give them, and then proceeded to burn through over 10 cases a week! Yes, it’s that good and that food friendly.

We also have a really amazing selection of the fuller-bodied, Smaragd Gruner Veltliners (Sma-WHAT?). Epic picks include:

Donabaum Spitzer Point 2004
Donabaum Spitzer Point 2005
Gritsch Mauritiushof Singerriedel 2004
Gritsch Mauritiushof Singerriedel 2005
Hogl Burgberg 2005
Hogl Ried-Schon Viessling 2005

So about that Spitzer Point 2004. This was the wine that moved Wine Spectator magazine to herald Johann Donabaum as one of the three top vintners “leading the way” in the Wachau region. They gave it 92 points and raved: “Creamy, rich and full-flavored. This is lush with plenty of power and finesse, and loaded up with ripe peach, berry and meringue flavors, with hints of hazelnuts as well. Mature finish of butterscotch and spice. Hard to resist.”
Sure, we could have jacked up the price on the wine after that kind of lavish praise, but we wouldn’t do that. We didn’t do that. So prove us right in our convictions and treat yourself to this truly incredible example of what terroir-driven, Wachau Gruner Veltliner can be.

And of course there is our darling from outside of the Wachau. Aged in oak, this is a Gruner Veltliner which is truly in a class by itself. This is the Melusine project:

Melusine Lyra 2004
Melusine Lyra 2005 (95 points from A La Carte!)

Ending on a sweet note, we also have the new vintage of the Weiss Gruner Veltliner Ice Wine. This is another wine that sells out fast- so we managed to grab some more of the popular 2001 vintage as well.

Obviously, we are extremely proud of this new line-up. We sure hope that you are going to find out for yourself just why that is.

VIEW ALL OF OUR AVAILABLE GRUNER VELTLINER WINES