Winemaker Notes
The "Single Vineyard" bottling was the inaugural wine that launched the Sohm & Kracher label. This site is comprised of calcareous, gneiss and loess soils and benefits from the cool Nordic air. The wine undergoes the same pressing and settling regiment as St. Georg and Alte Reben but is fermented 100% in 1000L Stockinger casks and aged for 20 months. The texture is rich but the acidity is higher and more polished.
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2018 Grüner Veltliner Single Vineyard comes from 50+year-old vines in the Pulkau Valley, cultivated on loam, gravel and calcareous soils and was aged in large 1,500-liter oak casks for four years. It opens with a deep, intense, complex and finely saline bouquet of ripe, elegant, concentrated fruit that is initially intermingled with pencil tip notes. It is full-bodied, round and intense on the palate, with crystalline and persistently saline yet fine, mineral acidity and the bitters of a warm vintage on the warm and powerful yet refined and elegant finish. This is a mouth-filling, complex and sustainable Veltliner with initially some Riesling features (elegance, finesse and mineral as well as phenolic tension) but in the end—and after some days—full terroir and vintage character.
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James Suckling
A rich and complex gruner veltliner with restrained mandarin orange and apricot aromas plus a touch of smoke on the nose. A powerful and full-bodied mouthful thanks to the ample healthy tannins that also power the imposing and very dry finish. From a vineyard with very chalky soil. Matured for four and a half years in 1,000 liter barrels of used Slovenian oak.
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.
Appreciated for superior wines made from indigenous varieties, Austria should be on the radar of any curious wine drinker. A rather cool and dry wine growing region, this country produces wine that is quintessentially European in style: food-friendly with racy acidity, moderate alcohol and fresh fruit flavors.
Austria’s viticultural history is rich and vast, dating back to Celtic tribes with first written record of winemaking starting with the Romans. But the 20th century brought Austria a series of winemaking obstacles, namely the plunder of both world wars, as well as its own self-imposed quality breach. In the mid 1980s, after a handful of shameless vintners were found to have added diethylene glycol (a toxic substance) to their sweet wines to imitate the unctuous qualities imparted by botrytis, Austria’s credibility as a wine-producing country was compromised. While no one was harmed, the incident forced the country to rebound and recover stronger than ever. By the 1990s, Austria was back on the playing field with exports and today is prized globally for its quality standards and dedication to purity and excellence.
Grüner Veltliner, known for its racy acidity and herbal, peppery aromatics, is Austria's most important white variety, comprising nearly a third of Austrian plantings. Riesling in Austria is high in quality but not quantity, planted on less than 5% of the country’s vineyard land. Austrian Rieslings are almost always dry and are full of bright citrus flavors and good acidity. Red varietal wines include the tart and peppery Zweigelt, spicy and dense Blaufränkisch and juicy Saint Laurent. These red varieties are also sometimes blended.