Green and GrüVe
It’s new year, a new diary, new pin-up calendar on the wall, new resolutions, a new outlook and there’s a new taste in town.
Enter, the quirkily cool and refreshingly new-on-the-scene Grüner Veltliner – I know, it may sound like the wicked step-sister from a Brothers Grimm fairytale or one of James Bond’s Eastern European arch-enemies, but actually, once you’ve got past the name you’ll find a world of fresh & fun pleasure.
Pronounced Groo-ner Velt-lee-ner, or Gru-Vee for short, this grape is indigenous to Austria and has barely made any impact on the international scene until now, for reasons too long, vague & irrelevant for us to really care about. The fact is it’s here now, and more importantly, more winemakers are caring and daring to make a better job of it.
‘Grüner’ in German means green, referring not to the colour of the grape but instead to its youth, its newness, as by and large it is a wine largely drunk when young and fresh. It’s also an appropriate description of its aromatics.
The nose is not unlike a cold climate sauvignon blanc in its herbaceous and vegetable like character – green beans, lentils, grassy, alpine meadows but it can usually be identified by its signature of freshly cracked white pepper. Both citrus and tropical fruit flavours and usually a high level of acidity, along with its steely mineral notes, keep it crisp & refreshing.
The high acidity content is an indicator that this is a wine that can age well; like its counterpart Riesling, it can be made light and rolled out off a high yield for summer quaffing or it can be cropped & crafted to lay down and can age well for 10-15 years plus.
In recent years, Riesling has been enjoying a resurgence as the darling of the trendies, and slipstreaming behind has come Gewürztraminer. (And if you can get the average punter to order a Gewürz in Asia then GrüVe should be a piece of green tea cake in comparison).
GrüVe is highly unlikely to match, let alone surpass, either in terms of sales quota or mass appeal, and yet it may be about, albeit quietly, to cause quite a stir over the coming year or two. Irrespective of sales, it is poised to take seat as perhaps the cooler, edgier, alter-ego to these and sauvignon blanc. As far as personalities go, if sauvignon is The Beatles then GrüVe is The Rolling Stones, featuring Björk.
If GrüVe is personified then he eats healthily (but without inhibition) and drinks Alpine mineral water, laced with Absinthe on the weekends! His favourite movie is Little Miss Sunshine; he listens to the Scissor Sisters because he loves the way they’re out there doing their kitsch cool-uncool thang. Fresh & fun in a new evocative kind of way.
At once refreshingly different, yet at the same time strikingly familiar. After all which do you prefer: quirkily curious or safe & boring? You decide, just don’t tell him because he doesn’t care!!
He may have a name like one of James Bond’s arch-enemies but this one somehow seems less intent on total world domination and more intent on enjoying life along the way.
He’s marching to the off-beat of his own groovy drum; and as a result in secluded corners of the office, wine bars and restaurants mouths are talking, eyebrows are raising, and more than the occasional voice rises with the unbridled zeal of a new convert.
A zesty breath of fresh mountain air is sweeping through the room. It’s funky. It’s cool. It’s groovy. Look out for it - the name’s Veltliner. Grüner Veltliner.
