SUB-ZERO WINE BLOG

A lot of wine drinkers I meet think Austrian wines tastes just like German wines (and many of them also discount German wines as fruity and sweet, which is only partly true). The reality couldn’t be more different: Austria is south of Germany, closer to the equator than Germany, and therefore produces wines with higher alcohol levels and, some would argue, more complexity. Case in point: one wine: grüner veltliner. If you still haven’t gotten past the umlaut, try this: GROO-ner FELT-lih-ner. That’s it.


While you may not have heard of it, you can be sure that most chefs have. Why? Because grüner veltliner has an amazing ability to flatter food. When these wines are young and fresh, they’re wonderfully fruity, with wave after wave of acidity and flavor that ranges somewhere between grapefruit and dill. Yes, dill. In fact, grüner often exhibits aromas that seem implausible, and likewise complements foods that seem wine-repellent (think artichokes and asparagus). What it does not taste like is riesling, though the two are often compared. (Riesling is also grown in Austria, and beautifully, too, but, they’re very, very different.) What they have in common, however, is food friendliness, but gruners seem to go the extra mile.


If you’re intrigued enough to pull a few corks yourself, you’ll be blown away by the flavor array: Spicy, white peppery, pineapple, smoke, mineral—a lot of flavors in grüner that might not sound attractive in a wine work here, like celery, lentils, stone. You get a wine that can take on almost any food. What are you waiting for?