Until the last decade of the 20th century, Grüner Veltliner’s reputation stood in inverse relationship to its ubiquity. When Thudichum and Dupré in 1872 characterized it as “one of the most fertile vines in existence,” they doubtless intended a backhanded compliment. Because among the works they referenced was Johann Burger’s 1837 compendium on Austrian vineyards, wherein Grüner Veltliner stands accused of “yielding only coarse wines distinguished neither in taste nor spiritousness.”
An 1804 ordinance sought to discourage its planting in the Komitat of Pressburg (today’s Bratislava, not far from the variety’s likely birthplace) “because the juice of this grape yields a poor, insubstantial wine.” Hardly surprising, then, that Grüner Veltliner was not profiled in Hermann Goethe’s seminal 1873 Atlas of the Most Valuable Grape Varieties. He didn’t even deem its absence there worth noting. Fast-forward to wine guides of 100 years later, and judgment on Grüner Veltliner was “drink young and forget”—or, simply, “forget!”
What happened to elevate the status of this cépage? A few aspirational growers (most notably Franz Pichler, between 1928 and 1952) engaged in meticulous vine selection, bequeathing that legacy to a generation with the aesthetic vision, ambition, and talent to make a serious vinous statement. Positive notoriety had been gradually spreading for a decade when, in a November 2002 Financial Times column, Jancis Robinson MW announced “Austria 7 Burgundy 0” as “the unlikely score of a fascinating blind tasting of top-quality white wines held in London,” her headline pronouncing Grüner Veltliner as “groovy.”
This tale has sometimes been called a Cinderella story, but a better metaphor might be that of the reliable workhorse being revealed as thoroughbred. There have been many such revelations subsequent to Grüner Veltliner’s being ushered into the pantheon of ostensibly “noble” grapes, each such elevation worthy of historical, viticultural, enological, and aesthetic explication, each with its vine genetic dimension and its visionary human actors and, taken together, calling into question a deep-seated belief in the inherent superiority of certain cépages and an assumption that productivity plus regional ubiquity equals inferiority.
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Newfound respect
If nomen est omen, then before Grüner Veltliner’s spread, Austria’s dominant grape will have been Silvaner, since for at least four centuries it was called Österreicher, under which name it arrived in German Franconia—until recently the sole place in which this grape has enjoyed any prestige. During the 20th century, Österreicher, already overshadowed by Grüner Veltliner, dwindled to negligible significance in Austria. But it spread across Germany, coming to dominate in Rheinhessen. And that is how it became known (bracketing out Franconia) as, at best, a workhorse and at worst a variety predestined for plonk.
Repeated attempts to generate interest in Rheinhessen Silvaner met little success, until growers who had achieved 21st-century stardom with Riesling—notably Keller, Spanier, and Wittmann—began showcasing the grape’s striking, site-inflected potential. Research confirms a genetic diversity already evident to the eye: berries and clusters varying in size, as well as color. Improbable though this would have seemed even two decades ago, searches for old vines, and selection—massal, as well as clonal—are proceeding apace, predicated on Silvaner’s newly demonstrated talent for yielding rivetingly nuanced wines that distinctly reflect a range of soils and microclimates. Keller calls one of his bottlings Firebird, but Phoenix would have fit equally well.
Consider Austria’s second-most common white grape, Welschriesling. This is the mainstay of many a Central European region, and it trades under more than a dozen names, nearly all misleadingly incorporating some variant of “Riesling,” although the Rhine Basin’s famed variety is unrelated. Welschriesling’s brisk acidity has long been thought its most endearing feature, but a few visionaries weren’t convinced. In 2006, Heidi Schröck and the late Alois Kracher instituted a memorable back-to-the-future regimen with fruit from Rust’s most renowned vineyard, Greiner. And in 2012, Armin Tement speculated that an old parcel of Welschriesling practically at his winery’s door in the Zieregg deserved treatment no less respectful than that accorded his flagship Sauvignon. The resultant premium-priced “Weinstock Alte Reben”—Tement left “Welschriesling” off the label—added saline, chalky nuances to the grape’s characteristic brightness and finished with fireworks.
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“In my grandfather’s time,” observed Katharina Tinnacher, “Welschriesling was planted in our most coveted site, Steinbach, which seems wrong from today’s perspective.” But she had her doubts, and decided, “If we’re going to retain this piece of tradition, then we have to strive for a new level [but] following old methods”—which meant late harvest, spontaneous fermentation, and a long stay in cask on the lees. So was born in 2015 a wine of density and grip, with tangy acidity and a flinty, ashen, saline finish, named for grandfather Franz Lackner. Soon, other South Styrians, including Gross, Maitz, and Polz, were following suit, and growers in Burgenland and Hungary have also become serious about Welschriesling. Wines distinguished not by primary fruit but by minerally depth, from a stubbornly acid-retentive and astonishingly drought-resistant variety: How can Welschriesling fail to find favor in today’s climate?
That it doesn’t take the attention of an already prestigious wine grower to raise dramatically the profile of a workhorse is shown by other grape varieties in other places that will be visited next.
