Winemaker Notes
This wine is sourced from the Erste Lage Renner, which is comprised of loess, gneiss, and mica. Renner is situated on the bottom slope of the Ried Gaisberg Riesling terraces–the bottom slope has a deeper soil structure and offers more water retention than the primary rock higher on the slopes making it perfect for growing top quality Grüner Veltliner.
Professional Ratings
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Wine Enthusiast
Fresh yeast still plays uppermost in the aromatic register of this spicy wine. The palate, enhanced by slight spritz, then speaks of white pepper, crushed sage, lemon freshness and a subtle but insistent yeast. This is gorgeous, slender, savory and utterly moreish. Drink by 2040. Cellar Selection.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Always the first 1er cru that is ready to be bottled (in July), the 2019 Kammern Ried Renner 1ÖTW displays a radiant lemon-yellow color and opens with a beautifully clear, bright, intense and elegant, remarkably refined and distinctive bouquet of broom blossoms intertwined with flinty lemon aromas of crushed stones. Everything is perfectly intermingled and gives that distinctive, elegant and refined, dense and calm style. The attack on the palate is vibrantly fresh and still nervous (vinified in an old five-hectoliter oak vat), but the wine develops a dense, complex, finely salty and structured mid-palate with a long, intense and persistent finish that reveals fine tannins and characteristic salinity. This is an impressive Renner. 13.5% alcohol. Tasted at Schloss Gobelsburg in June 2021.
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.