Winemaker Notes
Grüner Veltliner is the signature grape of Austria and produces a dry white wine with savory aromas, spicy flavors, and good acidity. Grüner Veltliner Smaragd from the Wachau is a full-bodied wine and is rich in style with notes of stone fruit, lemon, radish, and arugula.
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
I have heard gruner veltliner dismissed for supposedly not being elegant, but this is an extremely elegant example! Very complex nose of snow peas, green beans, wild herbs and green pepper. On the medium-bodied palate, this remarkable gruner veltliner has a discreet succulence, but what makes it amazing is the way it glides so gracefully over the palate, then splash lands in a deep pool of wet stone minerality. Underplayed power and concentration!
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Vinous
The 2022 Grüner Veltliner Smaragd Kollmütz is picked in the core parcels of the Kollmütz in weathered paragneiss that roots can penetrate, picked from 55-to-80-year-old vines. Subtle smokiness on the nose leads to a serene palate with hints of fern-like, sage-like spice. The palate continues in this subtle fashion but opens up on the mid-palate with an immensely salty, herbaceous yeastiness, adding hay and pepper. This lovely slenderness and linearity just glide along—serene, elegant, bright and so salty, with an echo of white pepper.
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Wine Spectator
A distinctive smokiness hangs over this radiant white, with yellow peach skin, mango, geranium and celery leaf flavors on a rich, full palate. An extrovert for sure, revealing an inner density, powered by mineral notes and a high-charged zestiness, with an almond hint at the end. Characterful and very appealing.
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.
As Austria’s most prestigious wine growing region, the landscape of the Wachau is—not surprisingly—one of its most dramatic. Millions of years ago, the Danube River chiseled its way through the earth, creating steep terraces of decomposed volcanic and metamorphic rock. Harsh Ice Age winds brought deposits of ancient glacial dust and loess to the terrace’s eastern faces. Today these steep surfaces of nutrient-poor and fast draining soil are home to some of Austria’s very best sites for both Grüner Veltliner and Riesling.
Wachau is small, comprising a mere three percent of Austria’s vine surface and, considering relatively low yields, represents a miniscule proportion of total wine production. Diurnal temperature shifts in Wachau facilitate great balance of sugar and phenolic ripeness in its grapes. At night cold air from the Alps and forests in the northwest displace warm afternoon air, which gets sucked upstream along the Danube.
Its sites are actually so varied and distinct that more emphasis is going into vineyard-designated offerings even despite grape variety. Grüner Veltliner and Riesling are most prominent, but the region produces Chardonnay, Pinot Blanc (Weissburgunder), Pinot Gris, Sauvignon Blanc and Zweigelt among other local variants.