Inaugural E-Mail Wines

These are the wines featured in the inaugural E-Mail.

We start off with the Kurt Angerer Kies Gruner Veltliner from 2008:

A clean Gruner Veltliner with overwhelming scents of peaches and green apple skins right away in the nose. There is also a bit of steely minerality here too but it works into the fruit smells in a way that makes me wanna holla. The taste is pure, simple and unadulterated pleasure. Again very clean and the fruits carry into the mouth but there is also zingy/zippy acids that make the wine almost fizz away into the finish. And the finish… well it hung around long enough for me to wonder if I was still drinking it some minutes later and that made me smile a silly smile of joy. In all I dig this wine quite a bit because it has something that most Gruners don’t: lasting power contained in a light bodied white wine. This wine is drinking great right now but in all fairness could last in your cellar for another 8-12 years before going south. Don’t believe me… skip to the last wine.

Email Price: $14.99 | Regular Price: $18.99 | Best Internet: $15.99
Bottles Available: 48
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Next off is the Birgit Eichinger Gaisberg Riesling from 2005:

This wine smells smart. Not in that smarty pants kind of way but it smells how a smartly dressed man/woman would smell if you caught them walking down the street. You know, all pinstripes and tailored. Just smart. Replete with apricot and honey in the nose. The mouth is dry but with a weighty body that coated my tongue with goodness. This wine is perfect with heavily spiced dishes and worked well three days after opening.

Email Price: $12.99 | Regular Price: $19.99 | Best Internet: $20.99
Bottles Available: 42
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Moving into the red category with the Ecker Zweigelt 2007:

OK, I have an admission to make: I love the wines of Beaujolais. Not the crap they wheel out at Thanksgiving time but the fruity, soft and easy kind that is becoming harder and harder to find done well. The Ecker is a wonderful Austrian take on the easy quaffing wine that should be most Beaujolais. Fruit nose of cherries, blackberries and spice out of the nose move into a soft and welcoming mouth. In all honesty this wine didn’t wow me at first blush but after it was open for a couple of hours it changed into a truly enjoyable wine that I wished hadn’t gone so fast. On top of all that this wine comes in a liter sized bottle… one quarter more for the same price. Also I think that this wine and ribs might be a natch!

Email Price: $10.99 | Regular Price: $14.99 | Best Internet: $11.99
Bottles Available: 120
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The next red is from Weingut Prieler and is their Blaufrankish 2005:

Blaufrankish, better known as Lemberger (Germany) or Kerkfrancos (Hungary) is a wine variety that I think more of us should get to know. Imagine all the power, lushness and grace of a great Merlot with the body and soul of Burgundian Pinot Noir and you will come close to what good Blaufrankish is all about. Smokey blueberries right away combined with white pepper in the nose lead way to a rich body. There is also a bit of what the French would call Merde de Lapin here that I really like (note: I do not have extensive knowledge of what rabbit poo smells like but this wine phrase can loosely be translated into barnyardy…). This wine is simple and sublime all at the same time and by day three of being open was just as enjoyable as day one. This is a wine that could stand up to some big protein but could just as well go by itself. A winner amongst all the winners here.

Email Price: $17.99 | Regular Price: $27.99 | Best Internet: $18.99
Bottles Available: 35
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I know I should stop here but there is just one more wine that came across my dining room table (where I do all the in-home baby watching tastings). This is a gem and while it is spendy it is also something that I feel much better having had. Ladies and Gents, it is my pleasure to introduce you to a 32 year old Gruner Veltliner; the 1976 Domine Leth Schieben Reserve Gruner Veltliner:

A real treat of a wine! Imagine a wine to rival the instant joy of long aged Burgundy but costing a, seriously, fraction of what Burgundy would set you back… Oh yeah I don’t know of any Burgundy from 1976 that has ever tasted this good. This wine is surprisingly alive! There are hints of oxidization on the nose (it is more of a harmonious kind of oxidization like an aged Rioja white) with most of the aromas being taken up by honey, white peach and a really alluring flower that I couldn’t ever nail down. It tasted straight away much younger than 32 years old with a truly lively body that still has plenty of acidity but also a salty/briny quality that reminded me of eating well made Honey saltwater taffy. The best part about this wine (other than the facts that it is so damn cheap, relative to what it is, and drinks better than many Gruner Veltliners from 5 years ago) was that we had this wine with some uber-spicy pork tacos and the wine went to work straight away in cooling off our mouths from the adobo and still had enough fruit to play nicely with the mango salsa on the tacos. This wine is something to behold but not many of you are gonna be able to hold it since there are only seven bottles available (there would have been 9 but my wife, born in 1976, really liked the wine and you know what they say about keeping your spouse happy). The Leth is also a testament to how Gruner Veltliner can age when very well done as this wine was some 32 years ago, awesome!

Email Price: $71.49 | Regular Price: $109.99 | Best Internet: Really Unknown
Bottles Available: 7
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The Hills are Alive with the Sound of Austrian Wine

The hills of Austria might have once been alive with the sound of music but today the hills are alive with the sounds of quietly bubbling vats of grape juice. The tune and tenor might have shifted but there is a harmonious sound coming forth from this storied wine land, there is a reason Vienna is better known in Austria as Wien, and we all are the better for it.

For too long the modern aspect of Austrian wines have stayed within the comfort zones of sommeliers and wine geeks and out of the paws of most of the wine drinking population of our fair Cities and that is something we all should change since I have found Austrian wines to be just too damn good to keep under wraps any longer. Sure, you might have had a Gruner Veltliner, the mainstay of modern Austria, but have you ever had a smokey Zweigelt or a lush Blaufrankish? Probably not and that, dear friends, is a real crying shame.

Austria is a historic wine land that just doesn’t get it’s fair share in the world of overripe monster wines. Be it all with wines light, lithe and unpronounceable. The land itself is centered in Europe with most of the country given way to the Alps but on the Eastern sides of the land lies an almost perfect vine growing region. Cold winters and warm, and long, summers/falls provide the vines ample time to ripen but still with an odd ability to hang on to the most vital acidity (and it is the acid here that makes Ken Kesey wish for more gas for Furthur). The soils are varied but consistent in stressing the vines to produce stylized wines of substance and grace. This is true from the Kamptal down to the Styria – all varied in slope, aspect and soil but almost all have the common thread of producing great wines that are unheard of here in the Twin Cities.

While the talk of soil and slope can be exciting for some what has really captured my attention between feeding the baby and tasting these wines was in how two common threads really tied all of these producers together: youth and family. With the exception of Domaine Leth all of the winemakers crafting the wines below are young. In the world of wine is is rare to find a winemaker at the helm that is under the age of 35 yet three of the five winemakers here are all under that golden bar and five wines are crafted by families not corporations. One of those two threads would be interesting but both in conjunction is a rare treat and one to make note of. Here are wines of an extreme caliber being made by folks and families all on their way up unafraid of being encumbered by the past or fear of technology. The way I look at it is if these are the wines they are making now then what heights can we look forward to when they hit their strides? The highest of highs for sure.

So what about these wines? Simple -Â they are awesome. Clean and refreshing whites. Sultry and complex reds. All of them winners without pause.