Gindl’s Buzzy Buzzard

It’s always fab to find another ‘natural’ expression of Grüner Veltliner, the key Austrian grape. So when I walked into Amathus on Wardour Street and found two bottles of wine from Michael Gindl in the Weinviertel, I had to try them out. Actually, to be honest, they weren’t the only thing I picked up from Amathus’s well-picked range, thanks to the friendly and engaged service. With four stores around London – in Knightsbridge, the City and Shoreditch as well as Soho – and an online shop, they’re well worth checking out.

Anyway, back to the Weinviertel and Gindl’s Buteo ’12 Grüner Veltliner, named after the buzzards that fly over his vineyards around Hohenruppersdorf. Spontaneously fermented in wooden barrels, the wine is then aged for a year on the lees in acacia barrels, before being bottled, unfiltered. This low-intervention (or ‘natural’) Grüner smells of dusty sweet apples, as well as giving off a little residual yeast. It retains its lively acidity, a dirty sweetness and a delicious bloom, high in the mouth, as solventy as it is nutty, before offering a long, luxurious marzipan-like finish. It makes for a cracking food wine and could certainly cope with big meaty dishes, but you must also try a glass (or two) of this complex Grüner on its own terms! This rarity is well worth the £20 price tag.