2013 Grüner Veltliner Engelberg

Ludwig Neumayer took the reins of his family’s estate in the wake of Austria’s 1985 wine scandal. In partnership with his brother Karl, a Vienna banker, he has been almost single-handedly responsible for whatever attention has been accorded the Traisental (although in recent years his nephew Markus Huber, whom I need to visit again soon, has gained prominence). Neumayer represents an unusual combination such as one occasionally meets in the wine world: a down-to-earth, hands-on farmer who is also a complete geek in matters vinous.

His whites from conglomerate terraces, which bear some similarity to the Wachau in their alternation of warm Pannonian influence by day and cool forest air at night, are often refined and intricate. Grüner Veltliner is the overwhelming star here, with the lighter wines often being bottled by year’s end or in January and the others in late winter or early spring, but Riesling can also be noteworthy. The original Wein vom Stein that gives its name nowadays to several Neumayer bottlings and serves as a winery moniker is based on an old field blend. And Neumayer has since his earliest years as a vintner been one of the most serious proponents of Austrian Pinot Blanc and Sauvignon Blanc, the latter variety now planted in three different sites.

Neumayer lost one-third of a typical crop in 2013 thanks to the poor flowering of his Sauvignon and dominant Grüner Veltliner, and unfortunately his oldest vines on the steepest slopes were worst hit. But other than that, he opined, summer heat is not a problem. “We had that in 1997 too,” he pointed out, and the results were as fine as any in modern memory. (Several Neumayer bottlings from that vintage are still drinking impressively.)

Always full of fascinating insights into wine growing, which he delivers at a mercilessly rapid-fire pace, Neumayer is honest and self-critical to a fault. He pointed recently to an interesting trade-off that he found especially tricky in 2013 and which had not occurred to me previously. On the one hand, he wants to settle his musts to the point where they will not be too hospitable to the yeasts, otherwise they are liable to ferment too quickly to be capable of preserving finesse and engendering nuance. On the other hand, though, he wants to retain enough solid matter to ensure ample raw material and an eventual impression of substance in the resulting wines. He’s leaning right now toward the view that in 2013 he sinned a bit on the side of clarification. Several wines fermented well into the new year--late by estate standards--and a couple of lots never went dry.