2007 Bründlmayer Grüner Veltliner Alte Reben

Bründlmayer

Austria / Kamptal / Bründlmayer

“Alte Reben” means “old vines” and designates a wine sourced from our oldest vineyards with vines averaging 50 years.

Older vines are less productive, forming fewer and smaller grapes that profit from a well developed root system. This root system reaches deeply into the ground and supplies its fruit with potent nourishment. As a consequence, wines of these vineyards are extremely flavourful with enormous concentration.

TASTING NOTE
Hedonistic nose - it is dense, rich and complex. Peaches and white pepper, with nuts and lees buried underneath. Minerals too. Intense spice attacks the palate before giving way to big round textures with savoury/smoky flavours. Spice takes over again when some big acidity asserts itself to clean up, leaving a prickly, spicy length. Very good.

February, 2009

David Schildknecht

Wine Advocate

92 points

Picked mid-November, Brundlmayer’s 2007 Gruner Veltliner Alte Reben displays peat-like, smoky black tea, brown spice, roasted nuts, musk melon, and generally low-toned flavors, with savory, meaty, iodine-laced, crustacean depth. Yet for all that – and for all of its polished textural richness – this is light on its feet, loaded with primary juiciness, and finishes with elegance and refreshment as well as a remarkable transparency to the wine’s special expression of savory minerality. Here is one of those 2007s that acts as though it has a point less alcohol than the analysis shows (an already moderate 13.5% in this case). I would plan on following it for as long as 7-10 years in the cellar.
Willi Brundlmayer harvested through the third week of November, undeterred by frost, harvesting his profound but generally high alcohol Lamm and Kaferberg Gruner Veltliner at a moderate 13.5% alcohol.

Kim Marcus

Wine Spectator

90 points

Rich, creamy and plush, with concentrated white pepper, peach and grapefruit flavors. The spicy finish is long and powerful. Drink now through 2013.

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About Bründlmayer

This is probably Austria's number one estate outside the Wachau. If you are to believe former World Champion sommelier Andreas Larsson, Bründlmayer is in fact the nation’s finest, bar none. However you look at it, this is another one of the world’s top white winegrowers. The winery is situated in Langenlois, some 70 km northwest of Vienna, upstream along the Danube in the Lower Austrian Kamp Valley. The wooded hills of the Waldviertel protect the vineyards from the cold north-westerly winds. During the day, the sun warms the stony terraces, while at night the fresh, fragrant forest air drifts through the Kamp Valley into the Langenloiser Arena. The Kamptal is not far from the Wachau or Kremstal but it does throw up a whole different terroir and style mix. Grüner Veltliner and Riesling are still kings but there are no Federspiel/Smaragd categories. The wines of Bründlmayer are dry, mineral, powerful and harmonious.
Since 1980 this talented winemaker has transformed 125 acres of terraces, set above the Danube in Langenlois, into a beacon for Austrian wine. Jancis Robinson on Willi Bründlmayer

About

“Since 1980 this talented winemaker has transformed 125 acres of terraces, set above the Danube in Langenlois, into a beacon for Austrian wine.” So wrote Jancis Robinson of Willi Bründlmayer, who inherited from his father a love and respect for nature that has become more profound through travels to other major winegrowing regions of the world. Only organic fertilisers such as composted vegetable matter are used in the estate’s vineyards. Ecological harmony has absolute priority here: when old vineyards are grubbed up they are left fallow for five years before replanting so that the soil can regain its natural fertility; clover and wild herbs regenerate it and create an ideal meadow habitat for bees and butterflies. To prevent erosion, water sumps have been created at regular intervals, which also help to improve the micro-climate. Willi never uses herbicides to control the growth of weeds. Thanks to him, the family name has become synonymous with reliable, top-quality Austrian winemaking, making some of the very best wines the country has to offer. At the turn of the millennium, Decanter magazine cited Willi among the 50 most likely people to change the face of the world of wine in the coming decades, which goes some way to demonstrating the esteem in which he is held at home and in the broader world of wine.