Limestone and Gruner Veltiner: A Match Made in Traisental

9/17/2007 -

The Traisental is one of the more obscure wine regions in all of Austria but the quality of the wines is anything but obscure. Traisental used to be grouped with Caruntum and Donauland until 1995, after which it could be referred to as its own wine region. Most of the area has soils of loess and loam and sometimes deposits of gravel and chalk . But where Ludwig Neumayer is there are lovely deposits of mineral rich limestone. Limestone retains water extremely well and is also not penetrated by roots easily so they have to dig deeper and get more of the intense minerals and nutrients that the inner earth has to offer. Limestone is looked upon in cooler climate regions as far superior to other types of soils. One of the main reasons for this is because there are reservoirs of soil water and older vines with longer roots can possibly reach these nutrient rich reservoirs.

So now, with that out of the way, how does the wine taste? We were absolutely blown away by the quality of this Gruner Veltiner from a new producer named Neumayer. The name of this Gruner is "Engelberg." The name is actually a combination of the names Engelreich and Seiberg which are the two sites that this wine is sourced from on terraced hills south of Krems. Neumayer is doing everything the right way, including natural yeast fermentation and using only stainless steel from fermentation through elevage. As a result these wines have a wonderful crispness and energy to them. The acidity is fantastic and there is a wonderful crunchy minerality with high toned citrus fruits. Long finish and wonderful inner mouth aromas. It has so much of a limestone vibe that it tastes like Gruner grown in Sancerre, Nantes or Chablis. Fantastic stuff. We have enough Gruner here as it is, but we felt compelled to buy vast quantities of this wine.