Grüner Veltliner

Grüner veltliner occupies about a third of the Austrian vineyard and is grown almost nowhere else in quantity. It is a crossing of traminer and an obscure vine found in 2000 growing in a single garden in Sankt Georgen, Burgenland, which is a rare case of a parent being identified from one surviving plant.

Its signature is a white pepper note, from the same rotundone compound that gives syrah its pepper, alongside green apple, celery leaf, lentil and citrus. At its simplest, grown on the flat Weinviertel, it is a brisk, light, faintly spicy wine sold in litre bottles and drunk young. From the terraced loess and gneiss of the Wachau, Kremstal and Kamptal it becomes dense, textured, ageworthy and closer in weight to white Burgundy.

It is dry in almost every version, which distinguishes it from German whites, and it is famously flexible with difficult foods: asparagus, artichoke and vinegar-dressed salads, which defeat most wines. Small plantings exist in the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary and increasingly in New York, Oregon and New Zealand, but Austria remains effectively the only source.