Trying to decide what wines to write about this week did not come as easily as we would have liked. We didn’t have a wine that blew us away, and the idea of writing about more summer wines felt overdone. It was already Friday, and the inspiration just wasn’t there. So to pick up some wine for the weekend and hopeful stumble across an idea or two, we took a walk over to Union Square Wines. Ok, so truth be told, we wanted to try out their new Enomatic wine tasting machine.
Like a kid in a candy store, we popped our card into the Enomatic machine and began tasting. A few wines stood out to us but we still hadn’t come across a big idea. With desperation beginning to set in we thought about settling on a piece about red wines to bring to summer barbeques. It was seasonally appropriate and it gave us the opportunity to include the wine that had impressed us the most thus far – Zweigelt, a medium body, complex red wine from Austria. But then, just as we were getting ready to leave another wine grabbed our attention. And suddenly it clicked, our topic picked us.
The wine that sealed the deal, was the Scholoss Gobelsburg 2005 Gruener Veltliner from Austria ($12.99). Austrian wines are not ones that tend to be top of mind. Most people don’t go into their local wine shop and ask the clerk to recommend a nice Austrian Blaufrankisch. While some recent success of Gruener Veltiner has brought some attention to the country, for the most part, many of the great wines of Austria go unnoticed. That means good values for us.
The first wine that we fell for was the 2004 Claus Zweigelt ($16.99). The Zweigelt grape is a crossing of Blaufrankisch and St. Laurent, combing the bite of the first with the body of the second. What that translates to for us is - this wine has a lot going on. There were smoky, meaty notes complemented by black berries and minerality. The nice amount of acidity in this wine will pair nicely with food.
The Scholoss Gobelsburger 2005 Gruener Veltiner became a quick favorite for us because it was a great expression of what the Gruener Veltiner grape should and can be. It had racy acidity, intense minerality, citrus accents and of course – that wonderful hint of pepper. And yes, you get all of that for only $12.99.
Our Austrian tasting wouldn’t be complete without a good Riesling, so we finished our evening with the Gobelsburger 2005 Riesling ($15.99). This dry Riesling was refreshing and light with notes of peach, apricot and minerality.
We walked out of the wine store with a few great bottles of wine, a topic we were excited about and a slight buzz from the enomatic. Those Austrian wines just kind of snuck up on us, but then again, the most exciting ones often do.
