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WISE IRISH BLOG

Stories of Friendship, Family, Fun and Food.
All the way from the Emerald Isle!

Tuesday, April 06, 2010

Nothing could be finer than a Grüner Veltliner............ in the morning





Alright, it is a little too early to be breaking out the wine, but surely, it is happy hour somewhere! With my never-ending quest to find exceptional wine I thought I would virtually share this fine summer sipper with you, my thirsty readers.


Kellermeister
Privat
Grüner Veltliner 
Kremser Goldberg
Trocken
€ 13.95

Before I get into the brix n' bones of it all I can give you a brief translation on the label. Even if you do not know the language, you should never be scared away from buying the wine. That would be a travesty.

Kellermeister: Name of the winery in Austria where this wine is produced. 

Privat: Means that this is part of their private label and is not in mass production.

Grüner Veltliner  (pronounced grooner felt-leaner) - is the name of the grape variety. Most commonly grown in Austria and Czech Republic, this wine is well known as being a food-friendly wine. Intended to be drunk young, it would be uncommon to find this type of wine more than a few years old. So, right now we should be drinking a 2008 or 2009 vintage. On a side note, a decent percentage of the Grüner Veltliner grapes grown west of the Danube in Austria are perfect for laying down to keep for a few years in your cellar, due to a higher content of minerals in the soil.

Kremser Goldgerg: is the name of the field/area where the grapes used for this particular vintage were grown. 

Trocken: means DRY. My favourite type of white wine.


Now that the technical details have been explained there is not much left to discuss except for how darn good n' drinkable this wine is. My advice is to first make sure it is adequately chilled. Leave it in an ice bucket for at least an hour or a few hours in the fridge. It will not taste as good as it should if it is room temperature.


Do you have a nice glass to pour it in? If not, then go get one. You can buy the wine and your wine glasses at www.cases.ie You can't drink Guinness out of a tin can and expect it to taste great, so why drink your wine out of a thimble sized glass? 

Seeing as you have to wait for your wine to chill, you have a few minutes to whip up the perfect dinner to go with this wine. A spicy pasta dish! We were amazed to find that the wine stood up to the heat of this dish we had for dinner last night. The chef loaded it with dried chili flakes and the wine did nothing but complement the flavours.


The wine has a nice yellow-straw kind of colour to it and the first sip tastes like.....more! Crisp fruit flavours like apple and a little citrus all balanced nicely with a lively acidity. I am sure that there will be plenty of summer sipping of this one done in my house and I am thinking it will fit the bill of 'goes well with everything'!
The thing you need to remember about wine, in my humble opinion, is as long as you like the taste of it then that is all that matters. 

Just remember one thing folks: Friends do not let friends drink White Zinfandel!

Those are all the WiseWineWords I have for today,

WiseMóna

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