Monthly Archives: August 2014

Grüner Veltliner Smaragd at Vienna’s Palmenhaus

These last lazy days of summer call for a full-bodied but zesty white, lively enough to feel refreshing on a warm night and serious enough to merit a little quiet contemplation. On a trip to Vienna, I discovered just the thing: Grüner Veltliner Smaragd.

Grüner Veltliner, you might justifiably argue, is not exactly a discovery. In the last decade or so, the Austrian variety has become quite popular with sommeliers for its food-friendly acidity and peppery spice, and it’s not at all uncommon nowadays to find examples on wine lists. In fact, I had more or less stopped drinking Grüner in favor of more obscure varieties. It took a little green lizard to get me back.

Austria’s most famous wine region is the Wachau, a surprisingly small region along the Danube west of Vienna. In addition to classifying wines using terms familiar to German Riesling drinkers (Kabinett, Auslese, Spätlese, etc.), the Wachau complicates matters by often substituting its own unique system, as The World Atlas of Wine explains:

Steinfeder is a light wine up to 11.5% alcohol for early drinking. Federspiel is made from slightly riper grapes, 11.5-12.5% alcohol, good in its first five years. Wines labeled Smaragd (after a local green lizard) can be seriously full-bodied, with alcohol levels above — often far above — 12.5%; they repay six or more years’ aging.

Most Grüner Veltliners I see don’t carry any of the above designations, which isn’t a comment on their quality. But if you see a Grüner labeled Smaragd, which literally translates as “emerald,” snap it up. They are harder to find, but they repay the effort. As The Oxford Companion to Wine notes, the Smaragd designation indicates “the most valuable category of white wines made from the ripest grapes on the best sites of the Wachau.”

At vegetarian Tian in Vienna, we ordered a 2012 Tegernseerhof “Bergdistel” Grüner Veltliner Smaragd, which blends grapes from Tegernseerhof’s various vineyards. I knew I would like it as soon as I smelled its enticingly creamy green aroma. It had deliciously creamy fruit on the palate as well, with restrained spice and beautiful balance. It felt very classy, this Grüner, and as many Grüners do, it paired wonderfully with a range of vegetables.

I also found an example at Palmenhaus, a regal café and restaurant occupying what was once the imperial palm house, which has an excellent selection of Austrian wines by the glass. The barrel-vaulted glass roof makes for a gorgeous interior, but the weather was simply too fine to sit indoors. I found a table outside overlooking the leafy Burggarten and settled in with a glass of 2012 Graben Gritsch “Schön” Grüner Veltliner Smaragd. “Schön,” which means pretty, is not an adjective in this case but the name of a vineyard on the far western edge of the Wachau near the town of Spitz.

I loved this wine, which clocks in at a hefty 14.5% alcohol. It had a complex aroma of dried herbs, green fruit and even a hint of smoke. But when I tasted the wine, it burst with rich fruit, leavened by cedar and some focused gingery spice. It felt very decadent and exotic — perfect for sipping outside the palm house of the palace of the Habsburgs.

Tasty Grüner Veltliners are produced in many of Austria’s wine regions — the grape occupies no less than a third of the country’s vineyards. But Grüner Veltliner Smaragd wines are special. Seek them out. They are a worthy pairing with summer’s last few precious days.

It was bound to happen sooner or later. Last weekend two people challenged me to this ice bucket ordeal, in which one either donates to the ALS Association (or another charity) or dumps a bucket full of ice water over one’s head.

I elected to donate to the Wounded Warrior Project, which assists veterans injured on the battlefield once they return home. It’s one of the worthiest causes I know.

You can see my video here, in which I put an ice bucket to proper, civilized use.

Poolside Sauvignon Blanc at the gorgeous Hacienda Ucazanaztacua on Lake Patzcuaro in Michoacan, Mexico

It came as a surprise to me as much as anyone that Mexico is capable of making perfectly lovely wines, both red and white. But after being here for a couple of weeks, roving the central highlands where evenings can be positively chilly, even in August, it started to seem more reasonable that wine grapes could grow and even thrive here.

While on this trip I tasted an array of wines, ranging from cheerful Chenin Blanc/Colombard blends to hearty, meaty Shirazes, and rarely was I disappointed. The Mexican wines I tasted tended to be well-balanced, with lush fruit and focused acids and spice. I never had one that felt overblown or overheated — there was a coolness and restraint to most wines which I found quite appealing.

Mexican wines only occasionally appear on U.S. store shelves, but if you travel here, you’ll have no trouble finding at least one or two local options on most wine lists. And you should travel to Mexico. The people are exceedingly friendly, the colonial cities are exceedingly beautiful, and the State Department’s travel warnings seem to me to be exceedingly overblown. Surely there are trouble spots — just as there are in New York, Chicago and Los Angeles — but I never once felt to be in any sort of danger, even in the deepest Michoacán countryside (see photo above).

Watch for Casa Madero, Chateau Domecq and Monte Xanic labels in particular. Wines from these producers tend to be easy to find and quite delicious. Salud!

Few drinkers are unfamiliar with tequila, that famous Mexican spirit distilled from blue agave which makes its way into margaritas and tequila sunrises. Smoky mezcal, which can be distilled from a range of different agave species, has also become relatively famous in recent years. I even had a delicious Negroni in faraway Vienna recently, in which the creative mixologist had replaced the gin with mezcal. But I had certainly never heard of sotol, a sister spirit to mezcal and tequila.

Sotol comes primarily from the desert spoon agave (Dasylirion wheeleri), though according to the menu of La Tequila in Guadalajara, other varieties such as duranguensis, palmeri and acrotiche agave can be included as well. Each desert spoon agave takes about 15 years to mature, if Wikipedia is to be believed, and each plant yields only one bottle of sotol. So it’s no surprise that shelves in liquor stores aren’t overflowing with the stuff (blue agave plants can yield up to 10 bottles of tequila or even more).

Because sotol is produced in a manner similar to mezcal — smoking the hearts of the agave plants in an open pit and then fermenting the juice before distillation — there are similarities in flavor. The desert spoon agave, however, makes sotol unique in the same way that blue agave gives tequila its own special flavor.

I tried a Hacienda de Chihuahua Añejo (like tequila, añejo sotol must be aged at least one year in oak), and it was a delight. A light green-gold color, it looked like it could have been a Sauvignon Blanc. The lovely vanilla aroma along with notes of smoked paprika indicated otherwise, however! When I took a sip, I thought it was going to hit me with a bang, but it proved to be quite smooth. The sotol started lush and rich, with some sweet flavors that slowly developed into gentle smoke and red-pepper spice flavors.  Very elegant, and surprisingly easy to drink neat.

Sotol comes from the northern Mexican states of Chihuahua, Coahuila and Durango, but bottles filter down to specialty bars such as La Tequila, and I found at least one or two shops in the U.S. offering bottles. But it’s rare, so if you do happen to see a bottle, don’t miss the chance to snap it up.