Neumayer, Grüner Veltliner “Ludwig”

To refer to a German or Austrian wine as “precise” is, admittedly, some rather tired cultural stereotyping—but, on the other hand, we can’t think of a better word to describe today’s 2016 Grüner Veltliner from Ludwig Neumayer. It’s a wine that cuts an electrifying swath across the palate, enlivening your senses with its combination of mouth-watering minerality and crystal clear fruit.At this price point, there’s lots of crisp, clean, serviceable Austrian Grüner out there, but Neumayer’s “Ludwig” is hardly the ‘entry-level’ wine it purports to be—it is on another level altogether. It is also, for Austrian wine aficionados, a window to a relatively unfamiliar Grüner growing zone, the Traisental DAC, which lay south of the Kamptal/Kremstal/Wachau ‘big three’ along the Danube. Instead of primary rock and the wind-blown silt known as loess, the Traisental is a more calcareous—i.e. limestone-rich—terroir, and it shows in Neumayer’s wines. Grüner and limestone were clearly made for each other