Greet the Grape— Zweigelt !!

...so a little over a year ago I was sitting relatively pretty in Weiden am See, on the banks of the Neusiedlersee in Burgenland. I had been invited to take part in a jury-tasting of new red-wine releases by the Österreichische Gastronomie Zeitung (Austrian Gourmet Digest, sortof) along with a wide range of wine people from various disciplines—other tasters from France, Belgium, England, Sweden and Bavaria—plus a couple Austrian wine-journalists.


Most of the wines came from the 2007 vintage—good material. The variety most often abused by the winemaker was St. Laurent, and the murder-weapon was usually François Frères mi-toast. Out of perhaps one hundred Blaufänkisch, ten were ethereally impressive, twenty were excellent, and maybe seventy a bit too ambitiously elaborated.
There were one-hundred thirty-five Zweigelts, and I would happily have drunk one-hundred twenty of them.

The experience made clearer to me that which I had long believed: there is no other grape-crossing which produces such consistently reliable and oftentimes delicious wine as does the Zweigelt. Not even Scheurebe offers serious competition, and Pinotage comes nowhere close.
A crossing is not a hybrid. Crossings result from the uniting of two vitis vinifera subspecies. Pinotage is a crossing of Pinot Noir and Cinsaut, for example. Popular hybrids include Seyval Blanc and Chambourcin—matings between vinifera and American vines.

Zweigelt is a crossing of Blaufränkisch with Sankt Laurent. It was created in 1922 by Dr Friedrich Zweigelt. He named it Rotburger because of its birthplace in Klosterneuburg, but due to occasional confusion with the Riesling/Trollinger cross RotbErger, Austrian wine pioneer Lenz Moser brought the current name into official use long about 1975. We will not go into Dr Zweigelt’s motives or his politics, but he was looking for prolific grape-bearing, good deep colour, and resistance to disease.

Zweigelt is relatively hardy when it comes to frost, drought, and to various ailments of the vine. In crossing Blauf and SL, Dr Z came up with a grape that tastes like neither.

Zweigelt is wonderfully versatile in its applications. It flourishes as monovarietal, but also blends beautifully with Blaufränkisch—as well as with French varieties Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon—and of course the two Bordeaux brothers together.

While occasionally profound, Zweigelt is so frequently delicious, and handles such a wide range of culinary demands, that one is amazed at its versatility. Try it with highfalutin’ Mexican cuisine, molé or adobo—take it to tandoori, pair it with panang—Zweigelt paints the very picture of panache…

Saufgelage ~ another hard night at the favourite industry hangout ~ !

…specifically the one ‘cross 10^th Ave from the old railroad trestle at the corner of 24^th…. Where the jukebox played Schweizer Volkrock all evening while we drank some very fine Austrians—

Quintet of rather unusual suspects: Me and Millman, Ellisa and Cynthia—plus Allison Lee, with whom I used to share an elevator on 8^th Ave during my VOS days ~

On this occasion, Allison the Instigator, so would if we could call her Alligator for short, but she’s not short, more like 5’10” so I guess we can’t…

One of the things I like best about working with Austrian wines is that the people involved typically work and play well with each other. Always happy to see Carlo or Monika or Jonathan or Allison, who works with Daniel Hubbard at Domaine Select…

On this occasion 4 courses and 8 bottles, one cork-stinker—sorry Mr Glatzer—but truthfully even for us pros, 9 would’ve been too many…

—not quite Noah boarding the Arque,

but still I set up the animals two-by-two. Firstoff:

2008 Lackner-Tinnacher Gelber Muskateller—heavenly aromas, lovely vibrant acids, one of the finest in Steiermark—the only uncertainty might be, what does one drink with it? GM experiments in the past have favoured just the slightest of flavours—but we drank it by itself, which is a more reliable decision.

2008 Wimmer-Czerny Roter Veltliner—we put this alongside the GM, because RV has comparatively little in the way of aromaticity—but we dug deeply into it when the fondue arrived. Texture, texture, texture… great flavour and great match with molten gruyère and emmenthaler (nb I have been to Emmenthal...)

then came 2 Grüne Veltliner from opposite ends of the spectrum:

2007 Emmerich Knoll GV Federspiel, which Cynthia Sexton brought, an aromatic and lively interpretation of the GV, somewhat on the citric side of the colour-scheme—second course was a little mason-jar of chicken-liver paté, quickly the victim of a feeding frenzy—went five-ways handily, and whetted appetites in a tantalising fashion.

2006 Gritsch Mauritiushof GV Singerriedel Smaragd, a heavyweight with plenty of punch, firmly nestled into the tropical spectrum of grüner veltliner aroma and flavour, glorious minerality typical to the site, and well balanced even with 14.5% you-know-what. This with the steak tartare was a heavenly combination—nice as well with crepinette de porc and ris de veau…

followed by 2 more Heavyweights from the teeming metropolis of Spitz an der Donau:

2002 Hirtzberger Riesling Singerriedel Smaragd, a bottle that Frau Irmgard H. gave me some years ago. Whereas their 02er Hochrain Smaragd was pristine and bright a year ago, Singerriedel showed about as much botrytis as could be safely packed into a dry riesling. Beautiful light-orange colour, apricot and citrus-zest nose, apple and pineapple cream on the palate. Intense minerality against still-zingy acids. Most of the diners headed for red wine dishes for their main courses—I ordered the pork garlic sausage with Yukon golds and leeks, so got to drink a substantial quantity of it…

2007 Karl Lagler Tausendeimerberg Neuburger Smaragd, out of a rather slatey site; like the first two bottles it came with Allison. I find fascinating that not-so-aromatic wines like Neub and RV don’t come across as deficient when tasted alongside fragrant bottles of RR and GV. Lovely texture, nutty flavours almond and pistaschio, a bit of bosc pear, acids well folded into layers of fruit, very handsome.

‘twas not really intended to be White Night, just sortof

turned out that way—but good to have a couple Rotweine from Burgenland, from opposite sides of the lake:

2007 Hans & Anita Nittnaus Heideboden, Zweig/Blauf/Merlot cuvée, just like satin—fruit sashaying backandforth from blueberry to sourcherry, very polished thanks to the international partner in the blend, ripe tannins and plenty of gitupngo. And I have to say that chef Ralf Kuettel has really got the hang of the hangar steak.

2006 Rosi Schuster Blaufränkish Reserve, the last bottle in my basement, and the end of the line for this cuvée from Hannes—sweet core of fruit, black-cherry and blackberry; expansive material, very little wood from 2^nd fill barriques; pretty depth and nice minerality heading down the dolce vita.

…after the crowd thinned out I realised a personal ambition and got the three ladies to read

the opening of Act IV Scene I from the Scottish Play—

Allison was a good sport about it, and the other two know me

well enough to be prepared for all sorts of foolishness…

—and at this point, I shall turn into the spirit and soul of discretion, and allow the remainder of the evening to remain at our table… will only say that Bob Millman

gave a very good account of himself as sitdown-comic—

or was it Standup-Philosopher?

~

¡ Verkorkt ! Bouchonné ~ !

bottle of Beaujolais Villages, intended for showing to retail buyers,
vivid stinker, and spoiled on the palate as well...

started to pour it out,
poured it in the lentil stew instead, along with half as much water—
almost immediately aromas of fresh and lovely gamay fruit
came wafting out of the pot.
no trace of corkiness in the dish.

yes, the cork-taint TCA does make itself scarce under fire.

and do try this at home.

headnote—quick take on GV

there are some Grüner Veltliner we love, some we admire, and some which inspire the uttermost respect.
Others we hang out with simply because of the variety's almost sluttish willingness to widely and wildly embrace quite a variety of table-companions...

Greet the Grape ~ Grüner Veltliner

…although a respected colleague labels her litre wine Grooner, pronouncing the actual first syllable of Grüner Veltliner is a bit more involved—the vowel is halfway between oo and sometimes-y—the groove that you hit, and the grin that you grin where the wine goes in.

that’s what the titties on top of the ü are about… The German language has more vowels than does the American or even the British. Let’s try this: gewurztraminer has no ü in French, but Gewürztraminer does in German. So try, perhaps, saying Grüner with a French u… as in Muscadet sur lie…

but surely that’s the only tedious thing about this remarkable grape—also known as Weissgipfler because of the white tipping on the leaves. Either way, it’s just as much the national treasure of Austria as poor Mister Mozart—and much more so than Familie Trapp, or the Spanische Hofreitschule…

at the basic level when GV comes out of the spigot in a tavern in Grinzing (Vienna 19) it’s sort of like pinot grigio with an imagination. At the exalted heights of Högl or the unrelated Pichlers, it can scare the hell out of a great white burgundy—my wine-snob friends in Los Angeles will not allow me to bring Bründlmayer or Gritsch to dinner when we are drinking their Ramonet or Coche-Dury.

one thing that various members of the GV tribe have in common is their aromaticity and spice—the simpler versions attract attention by means of a peppery snap, while the more luxuriant expressions trade this for an entire orchard of tropical fruit-tones and a vibrant acidity that is not so obvious as that of the noble Riesling. My take on the vintage variability of some of these wines is that the skin phenolics are greatly influenced by exposure to sunlight, so each year is bound to be different, depending on sunshine and leaf-work done by the Winzer. GV prefers warm autumns so it may ripen patiently and evenly, but is happy growing in many different kinds of soil.

it’s an interesting grape variety at nearly every point in the spectrum. Litre GV is so charming and resilient that one can even drink a good one after the great Smaragd-level wines from the Wachau. Federspiel and comparably-weighted wines from the Traisen, Kamp and Krems are among the most versatile bottles that will ever sit on your dinner-table. But cheap GV will give you a belly-ache like no other wine. Promise. The Austrian word for heartburn is Sodbrennen.

we Americans associate GV primarily with the famous wine-growing districts of Lower Austria—Wachau, Kremstal, Traisental, Kamptal—but there’s so much of it in the Weinviertel that a good chunk of real estate carries the subtag “Veltlinerland.” And we have known for a long time that Traminer was one of the parents of this remarkable critter, but only recently has the other been discovered—a hitherto unknown variety in St Georgen, in the Leithagebirge on the west side of the Neusiedlersee in Burgenland. Where GV is widely planted. (NB. Roland Velich’s rare Moric GV from this district changes spots for stripes with a new vintage: sometimes it comes across like Château Laville Haut-Brion, in other vintages more Cortoncharliesque...)

as far as food-matching goes, there’s not all that much that GV can’t handle. Sauvignon blanc is better with tomatoes. I like guzzling litre GV with a gyro—between what the fruit does with the tzatziki sauce and how the acid digs its talons into the mystery-meat... And then I recently drank an extraordinary half-bottle of Schloss Gobelsburg’s 2008 Ried Lamm in the restaurant Rote Bar at Hotel Sacher in Vienna after the Staatsoper performance of Tannhäuser early last month. It paired most handsomely alongside an Almo-Ochsen Tartare served with mustard-grape ice-cream, but then equally well with Beuscherl—a rather gratifyingly hearty concoction made from a calf’s pulmonary apparatus and ticker simmered in Riesling. Visitors to Vienna should not miss the GV selection at the Asian restaurant Kim Kocht out by the other opera house on the Gürtel, where Sohyi Kim’s remarkable, sometimes fiery cookery provides the variety with some very interesting challenges.

Foto: © ÖWM/ Faber

~ reflections approaching a signpost birthday...

one of the most important things which has smoothed my way through life—aside from having inherited my father's teeth and my mother's

liver—

is that while frequently in the company of those who need to

be Right, my need has been rather to be Heard...



photo: self-portrait—Auf der Brücke, KZ Dachau