Weingut Maria Hick, Grüner Veltliner Federspiel “Ried Stiegelstal”

As I’ve said many times before, there’s often more excitement to be found in a $25 bottle of wine than in one costing triple digits. In the same way that many expensive wines are built on artifice and imagery, inexpensive bottles often hide true brilliance and authenticity behind a modest façade. I find this to be especially true in the classic wine regions of Austria’s Danube River Valley, and especially the vine-carpeted slopes of the Wachau. Today’s 2017 Grüner Veltliner from the tiny Maria Hick estate is a carefully etched, polished little gem—so much more wine than the typical bottle at this price point that we are, of course, compelled to shout it from the rooftops of SommSelect headquarters. Having had the pleasure of floating along the Danube and taking in its stunning vineyard panoramas, I can tell you that this wine takes me right back there. That’s what real wines of place do, and in the Wachau, where so many of the wine estates date back hundreds of years, they’re able to d