2013 Grüner Veltliner Rosenberg

Bernard Ott took over his family’s vines--all centered on Feuersbrunn, one of the traditionally most important wine villages of the Wagram--in 1993, at the age of just 21, and by the end of that decade he had found his footing, not to mention his mission as Mr. Veltliner. He went on to achieve a notoriety that had not previously accrued to any wine grower from his region. Since 2006, Ott’s viticultural regimen has been biodynamic, and the acquisition of considerable additional acreage, especially in the Rosenberg vineyard, has brought him to the threshold of achieving his goal of exclusively estate-fruit vinification, even for what are now high-volume as well as consistently fine lower-priced bottlings.

The acquisition since 2010 of loess, gravel and eroded gneiss terraces in adjacent Engabrunn, just over the Kamptal regional line, has added an impressive third single-site Grüner Veltliner to the Ott line-up, and that same year witnessed the first bottling from whole berries vinified in huge clay pots on the principle, in Ott’s words: "Six months above ground, six months underground, and [with] humankind strictly in the role of observer." The results have been as impressive as any I’ve tasted from amphora or their ilk, preserving recognizable Rosenberg vineyard character but with an entirely different sort of depth, so it doesn’t surprise me that Ott is upping the number of kvevri---a.k.a. “Qvevre” for future bottlings. Small tanks have also been recently installed to facilitate experimental vinifications of diminutive lots.

The tiny share of Sauvignon Blanc here is seldom (including in 2013) memorably successful, but Ott’s two Rieslings can be quite interesting: one, dubbed “Rhein Riesling,” is a residually sweet variation that derived its initial inspiration as well as coaching from Rüdesheim’s Johannes Leitz.

Like other proponents of biodynamics, Ott emphasizes the role he thinks that this regimen plays in achieving ripe flavors early and at low potential alcohol levels. “A colleague of mine,” he related, “picked his Rosenberg Grüner Veltliner a full month later than I did, and it tasted fuller, but not riper. The greatest challenge today,” he went on, “is to preserve nerve and elegance and keep alcohol down.”

Ott puts his total 2013 losses to poor flowering at only around 15%, though in contrast with the experience at many estates, losses were higher here in those vineyards that inform his lower-end bottlings, which is one reason he was able to begin picking for them already in mid-September. Sadly, that is all insignificant in comparison with what is to come. Although mitigated by new contract vineyards for the Am Berg bottling, 2014 was a small and challenging harvest here, resulting in a decision not to bottle any single-site wines. And this May, rare and frighteningly savage nighttime hail decimated Ott’s vineyards (and many others in the Wagram and Kremstal) to such an extent that the very existence of a 2015 vintage here remains in question and the vines will need more than the 15 or 16 months until harvest 2016 to fully recover.

“After frost in February and then at Easter,” explained Bernhard Ott, “the spring of 2014 was quite dry.” As his two colleagues Karl Fritch and Franz Leth nodded, he stated that 2014 looked as if it would be an excellent vintage until late August. But as the weather turned cool and rainy, ripeness was stopped in its tracks. “Because we work biodynamically, we could not wait forever to harvest,” he told me. Like many in Wagram, he finished the crush by the middle of October and chose to extend his cold soaks to reduce the high acidity levels of the wines. In a bold step, he has decided to make no single-vineyard bottlings in 2014. “Everything will go into Der Ott,” he said. What I tasted from cask will leave some readers scratching their heads: many estates do not even make reserve wines of this quality.

For many consumers, Bernhard Ott is rightly the epitome not only of Wagram but of Grüner Veltliner production itself. He essentially makes nothing else, and so does not even write the variety on the front label, preferring names like Cask 4. A farmer at heart, he seldom travels, but receives his guests at the estate with the charm of a Gargantuan gentleman who enjoys eating, drinking and good conversation. In fact, he is one of the few leading Austrian producers that I know who has never been to the United States. “I prefer being in the vines,” he explained.

Of stately build, with long hair that is beginning to turn grey and a pair of old wire-rim glasses halfway down his nose, Ott is hard to miss in a crowd. Although he claims to prefer wines with less than 12.7% alcohol, most of his have the size of the man himself, and a number also sport a bit of residual sugar. A member of the ring of biodynamic producers called Respekt, Ott disdains irrigation and makes a wine in amphoras that he named Quevre. As a considerable proportion of the 300,000 bottles that he produces each vintage are exported, these are excellent Grüner Veltliner that are relatively easy to find.