Winemaker Notes
Usually this is GV rendered as Semillon, with a little hot paprika shaken into the mix. The ’17 is certainly a big smoky voodoo beast, real wicca-juice. It’s like you’re about to leave home for a few weeks and you cooked all the veggies you had, especially the peppers and eggplant, with cinnamon and nutmeg, and then you sucked on a Ricola eucalyptus candy, and then you top-applied Timut pepper, paprika and marjoram to your veggie-mess. And then you served up the joyful slop, wrecked your shirt, licked your lips, licked your partner’s lips, and let someone else wash the dishes.
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
A generous yet fresh grüner veltliner with a lot of citrus and herbal character, plus an enticing balance of generous fruit, medium body and lively acidity through the long, complex finish. From up to 80-year-old vines. Drink or hold.
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Wine Enthusiast
This wine's shy nose offers mere hints of salty yeast. On the palate, the saltiness becomes more pronounced and is joined by white pepper and fresh lemon brightness. Ripe pear notes round it all out and let the pepperiness tingle on the finish.
Fun to say and delightfully easy to drink, Grüner Veltliner calls Austria its homeland. While some easily quaffable Grüners come in a one-liter—a convenient size—many high caliber single vineyard bottlings can benefit from cellar aging. Somm Secret—About 75% of the world’s Grüner Veltliner comes from Austria but the variety is gaining ground in other countries, namely Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and the United States.
Climbing north and slightly east of the Kremstal region, Kamptal has very little vineyard area bordering the Danube River (unlike Wachau and Kremstal, whose vineyards run along it). The region takes its name from the river called Kamp, which traverses it north and south. Kamptal’s densely planted vineyards represent eight percent of Austria’s total.
The area experiences wide diurnal temperature variations like the Wachau but with less rain and more frost. Its vast geologic diversity makes it suitable for various experimentations with other varieties besides Grüner Veltliner and Riesling, such as Chardonnay, Pinot Blanc (Weissburgunder), Sauvignon Blanc, Pinot Noir, St. Laurent and Zweigelt.
But the region is probably most noted for the beautiful and expansive terraced Heiligenstein, arguably one of the world’s top Riesling sites, as well as some of Austria’s most extraordinary Grüner Veltliner vineyards. Kamptal’s soils, which are mostly loess and sand with some gravel and rocks, make it suitable for Grüner Veltliner, so much so that actually half of the zone is planted to that grape.