Grape Variety: Veltliner

Colour: White

Terminally trendy Gruner - as wine nerds and oenophiles call it - is Austria’s most widely planted grape variety, where, in quality regions like the Wachau, Kamptal and Kremstal, it can produce an assertive, steely, rich dry white capable of rivalling the best Rieslings, while around Vienna it is used for the young ‘Heurige’wines. It has a unique aroma and flavour with elements of white pepper and celery marking it out from any other variety. It’s also grown to a certain extent in Slovakia and Hungary. It is seen to a certain extent in Alto-Adige where growers such as Peter Pliger make wines of withering purity. Exhibiting exuberant honeysuckle aromas its initial sweet entry reveals white peach and a medley of avocado and sweet baby peas. Very rich and fat, with an almost unctuous level of glycerol. At the same time, though, the wine exhibits wonderful freshness and clarity that offset any sense of heaviness. Best drunk with pike.