Winemaker Notes
Grüner Veltliner is the signature grape of Austria and produces a dry white wine with savory aromas, spicy flavors, and good acidity. Young Grüner Veltliner is fresh-tasting with notes of green apple, lemon, radish, and arugula. Lighter styles of Grüner Veltliner are intended for immediate drinking, while more structured examples can age for many years.
Grüner Veltliner’s bright acidity and savory character make it an ideal partner to mildly spiced Vietnamese, Thai, and Chinese dishes. Fish and shellfish are accented by Grüner Veltliner’s citrus and mineral profile while its acidity cuts the richness of pork or ham. It can also work well with foods that are difficult to pair such as bitter greens and asparagus.
Established in 1452, the original purpose of this winery was to provide revenue for the hospital in Krems. The estate-bottled wines of the city’s own winery have always been a source of pride for its residents, but over the years the winemaking itself became perfunctory and lacked distinction — until the arrival of the current team in charge of the winery. During those lesser years these wines were passed by as young winemakers in the zone pushed for higher quality in the wake of the 1985 diethylene glycol scandal. Since 2003 many Stadt Krems vineyards have been replanted and revitalized and the cellar has undergone a renovation and expansion. Fritz Miesbauer and his young, ambitious team now craft their wines in the stainless steel tanks of a pristine but technically simple cellar. With a compact range of six offerings sourced from a variety of soils and handled by careful and adept managers, the wines display both the minerality and the juiciness of the Kremstal. All 75 acres of vineyards held by Weingut Stadt Krems are within the city limits. The Krems Valley is only a small winegrowing area, defined by two different soil profiles. The rolling highlands and the eastward falling slopes of the "Bohemian Massif" are some of the oldest formations in the world. In the Krems area, it is made up of various types of gneiss, whose weather-beaten forms make up the original Urgestein (primary rock) of the terraced vineyards to the west of the city. This is excellent soil for growing Riesling. But the loess soil is of particular importance for viticulture in Krems. The loess was formed in the most recent Ice Age some 300,000 years ago. It is mainly found on the southern and southeastern slopes of the Krems vineyards. It provides optimal conditions for growing the famed Grüner Veltliner of Krems with a lot of spice and fine structure. Fritz Miesbauer and his colleagues aim to produce wines with a clean fresh profile that are enjoyable to drink, and are typical of the region. They start with great vineyard sites, planted with the correct varieties for their soil profiles. The grapes are selected without influence of botrytis, fully ripe but clean. Fermentations take place in stainless steel tanks. The classic wines are released in the late winter and the reserve quality wines are released in May as regulations for the appellation dictate.
The region of considerable geologic diversity and microclimates, Kremstal extends virtually without border east from Wachau along the Danube River. Its magnificent terraced and rocky vineyards in the west alongside Wachau include some of Austria’s most esteemed Riesling vineyards, the (Steiner) Hund and Pfaffenberg, as well as Kögl and Wachtberg nearer to the city of Krems. After Krems, the vineyards become excessively steep upstream around Senftenberg where Riesling and Grüner Veltliner thrive. Grüner Veltliner does best from here east where the soils become a mix of sand, gravel and loess.
Grüner Veltliner and Riesling together comprise two thirds of all of the Kremstal vineyards; the region itself represents about five percent of Austria’s total vineyard area.
Fun to say and delightfully easy to drink, Grüner Veltliner calls Austria its homeland. While some easily quaffable Grüners come in a one-liter—a convenient size—many high caliber single vineyard bottlings can benefit from cellar aging. Somm Secret—About 75% of the world’s Grüner Veltliner comes from Austria but the variety is gaining ground in other countries, namely Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and the United States.