2014 Grüner Veltliner Tradition

Michael Moosbrugger, who this year celebrated 20 years at Gobelsburg with a gala dinner and a two-day Symposium on the History of Wine (to which I had the honor of giving the opening address), opined that the tiny crop from his hailed-on vineyards in the immediate environs of Gobelsburg accounts for unusually concentrated ripeness from low yields in his multi-site bottlings. In fact, his range here this year is as a whole dominated by relatively rich, full wines, but the best exhibit vivacity and transparency to rival other top recent Gobelsburg collections. In a sign of just how precocious must weights and acid maturation were in sites around Gobelsburg, Moosbrugger broke with his usual practice of starting harvest with the red wine grapes and instead began picking Grüner Veltliner for lighter cuvées and sparkling wine on September 11, only in the last week of that month turning his crews’ attention exclusively to bringing in St. Laurent, Pinot Noir and Zweigelt, in that order. Moosbrugger was one of the few Kamptal growers who testified to significant botrytis and a consequent need to select carefully in those vineyards where picking was delayed until the second half of October – and he has the nobly sweet wines to show for it (though he wasn’t ready to present them when I last visited). And he had enough healthy Grüner Veltliner left hanging in early January to permit a 2015 Eiswein. Revisiting Moosbrugger’s 2013 vintage “Tradition” offerings, I found relatively little to add or subtract from my already published reviews, with the Riesling performing on the upper and the Grüner Veltliner on the lower side of my laudatory pre-bottling assessments. (So yes, the latter remains a high point of its vintage, or indeed of any other.) Re-tasted from bottle, the trio of 2013 vintage “Reserve” reds that I reviewed previously all performed at the low end of my barrel assessments. (For details concerning this estate’s vineyards, practices and recent history, readers are invited to consult the extended introduction to my report on its 2013s.)