Ep 372: The Grape Miniseries -- Gruner Veltliner

<p>Grüner Veltliner (GROOH-ner felt-LEEN-ah) is the main white grape of Austria. In this show we discuss its surprisingly recent rise to fame, its unusual origin, and its important place in wine.</p> <p> </p> <p>Here are the show notes:</p> <p><strong>History and Parents of Grüner</strong></p> <ul> <li>We discuss this beautiful white grape whose name means  'green grape from the village of Veltlin in the Tyrol (Italy)," despite that fact that the grape likely comes from Niederösterreich, Austria</li> <li>M.C. Ice becomes baffled by Savagnin v Sauvignon. We settle on calling Savagnin it's other name, Traminer.</li> <li>The story of Grüner's other parent, St. Georgener is a marvel.In short, it was discovered as a 100+ year old lone vine growing on a cattle farm in 2000 after a local vintner followed a hunch that it was there. After six years of study, it became clear it was the parent of Grüner. In 2011, vandals chopped this old, lone vine into smithereens -- the ancient trunk and all shoots were hacked to pieces, devastating the Austrian wine industry. The thieves were never caught (although M.C. Ice swears he's on the job) but grapes are hard to keep down -- new shoots from this old vine grew from the ground and now the new growth is a national monument.</li> </ul> <p> </p> <ul> <li>We discuss how Grüner Veltliner was not much of a revered grape in Austria until the proper trellising system came along and changed the game. In the 1950s, producer Lenz Moser created a new vine training system that changed the way the grape is grown."High culture" or <em>Hochkultur </em>calls for growing the vine trunk to (1.3 m/ 4.3 ft) and reducing vine density by wide row spacing.  These changes revolutionized Grüner. By 2002 it gained great critical acclaim and it grew in popularity from there.</li> </ul> <p><em><a href= "https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-austrian-wine-that-sommeliers-loveripe-for-rediscovery-11619095308"> Here is a link to the Wall Street Journal article</a> written by Leattie Teague, who I referred to as the  "