Schloss Gobelsburg: philosophical investigations on the pleasures of Gruner Veltliner

“Then I brought up this question: When you say, Men do desire pleasure, what is this use of “pleasure?” Is it contrasted with pain? Pain is localized, for instance.

He went on with one of the nicest bits of analysis I heard… He started: Pain is a sensation. Pleasure is not. Why are the senses classified together? Obviously they are not a bit alike. Smells, odors, aren’t a bit like sounds. Then he gave this account. With respect to all these, you can time them precisely with a clock. “Now you see; now you don’t. Now you hear it; now you don’t.” By the clock you can tell. Now pleasure isn’t like this. The logic of the word pleasure is quite different. Clock the pleasure. When did the pleasure begin, when did the pleasure end, etc?”

“Wittgenstein conversations 1949 – 1951”, p 63, Oxford. Wittgenstein

Each Gruner Veltliner I have tended to taste is often so demanding, different or weird that I approach this Austrian grape as I would a hard soduku puzzle, slightly exhausted by the idea of the pleasure. It is a puzzle: in Austria, the spicy white is an everyday wine enjoyed in the same way as Chardonnay; but, here, Gruner Veltliner is still an exotic treat.

Schloss Gobelsburg is a benchmark in the Austrian style of Gruner Veltliner, so I joined the customers of Berry Bros & Rudd in their St James Street cellars ready to test my assumptions.

Like all outstanding winemakers, Michael Moosbrugger has done all the philosophical hard work for you; what is left in the glass is pure visceral pleasure. The Schloss Gobelsburg vineyards in the Danube had been owned by the monks since medieval times and the power of contemplation continues.

Each wine is like a philosophical answer to a question.

One of the questions he posed: How much can a winemaker really reduce manipulation of the wine? Can a winemaker really do nothing – does the terroir really speak for itself?

To test his question he went back to the Schloss Gobelsburg monastic wine library to look at how wine was made before 1850 and the industrial revolution. Before then, a winemaker had the same ideas for making wine that existed in Ancient Roman times. In Roman times, wine was based on the Platonic idea of breathing and oxygen. Wine was an organic thing, an embryo that needed to grow and breathe with periodic moments of oxygen to bring the wine to life. The winemaker was only a midwife. Today with modern technology and understanding, the philosophy in the cellar is more about protecting the aromas and reducing fragile components: which results in a wine that is cleaner, streamlined and fresher.

The answer to his theory: 2008 Gruner Veltliner, Tradition. This is wine made in the pre-industrial style. Compared to the other Gruner Veltliner wines we tasted, this wine was deeper gold in colour, richer and more savoury. It had an incredible depth but already seemed more developed than other Gruner Veltliner shown from the 2009 vintage.

For the people at the tasting, the 2009 Gruner Veltliner, Lamm was the favourite. From volcanic and sandstone soils it had a very refined palate, peppered with floral notes. Precise and completely in balance like an expensive watch. But it was the 2009 Gruner Veltliner, from the region of Grub, that really held my attention: like an abstract cologne of white pepper on the nose with fresh fruit on the finish. It had a distinctly modern, abstract, cool personality as if it belonged in the museum of modern art. I admit this will not be to everyone’s taste, but still, very thrilling.

Prepared for Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations, I came away from the night with the impression of the shimmering gold of Klimt. Pepper. Yes there was strict pepper, but also a lush golden character. Ending with the incredible sweet wine, 2008 Gruner Veltliner Eiswein, tasting of caramelised pear with amazing aged Comte cheese characters, only confirmed my belief that great Austrian wine can be an intellectual as well as a pure sensual pleasure.

The tasting ended at 8.31pm, but the wines shined well into the dark, rainy night.

Food matched: Wild Mushroom & truffle strudel, Herb spaetzle with Gruyere fondue, Fois gras parfait on toasted brioche, Weiner Schnitzel with sauce gribiche, Austrian sausage with mustard.

Images: "wittgenstein illustration 2nd reading branch, 1973" Mel Brochner; "Adele Bauch-Bauerm 1907" Gustav Klimt

Thank you to David Berry Green, Berry Bros & Rudd and winemaker Michael Moosbrugger for the opportunity to taste these incredible wines from Schloss Gobelsburg. Tasted 16.02.11.

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If you prefer your wine tastings all hushed tones, white walls and good lighting, then Bibendum's Annual Tasting was not for you.

Valentine's Day: wine for the cynical and jaded

Saying pink champagne is romantic is as delusional as saying Paris is feminine when one look at a map shows the city is a continuous paean to military conquests. The best Rose Champagne is not hearts and fluffy toys, it usually has a strong Pinot Noir constitution that can withstand many different food assaults. So if you must buy into the most commercial of days etc etc…

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Perhaps deep down I’ve always subscribed to the Oscar Wilde school of thought that Everything Popular is Wrong. So imagine my surprise when I asked my friends in wine shops to tell me what is popular. What wines are making people crazy with excitement? Having some time on my hands this month, I also witnessed the frenzy first hand. These wines’ popularity defy the prescription that wine has to be cheap, boring and of the same-same grape variety. If these styles are popular, then I am sure Oscar Wilde would approve my longing to be wrong:

Go a little crazy Arneis

First published on VINISSIMA.NET

In local Langhe-Piedmont dialect, the name of the white grape Arneis means “crazy, weird, introverted, whimsical, bizarre”. But what’s really crazy here is that Arneis is not more well-known as a white wine. In a similar way to Viognier, its individuality was once blended away into red wines and production was limited to a small parcel of land. Reminiscent of Viognier with its hint of apricot, good Arneis has an unmistakeable note of delicate white flowers and great Italian texture on the palate. Good humoured, light and original, I won’t say I have never seen crazy-as-in-psychotic examples of Arneis before – I have; that is, when they taste like a simple watery lemon and almond – but, when Arneis is on form, the white flowers, minerality and sapidity are a stroke of crazy-as-in-genius.

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Listening to INXS on the way to the Australia Trade tasting, I remembered the moment when Michael Hutchence turned up at a premiere for the first time with Kylie Minogue, who had chopped off her hair in to a pixie cut and looked like she had been doing a lot more than the locomotion. Something had changed, we all whispered, but what???

There is a whiff of the 90s about Wine Australia. Things have been good. Australia has had phenomenal wine success for the past 20 years. Why change it if it's not broken? But now the cute Kylie, sunshine-in-a-bottle image is no longer working. Wine Australia was here today to tell us about “A brand new conversation; a new brand conversation.” Which made me wonder: something was different, but what had changed?

Take a bite: Aglianico del Vulture DOC

First published on VINISSIMA.NET

Aglianico del Vulture dei Feudi di San Gregorio 2007

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From a once thriving wine-region 1-hour drive North-West of Milan, vineyards deserted in the 1950s for the textile industry, the Colline Novaresi DOC is in the highest and most eastern part of Piedmont. This is made near the town of Boca from the Nebbiolo grape which gives the wine a beautiful pale colour and perfume, also seen in expensive Barolo and Barbaresco, but contains up to 30% Croatina grape, a local variety which gives a violet colour and tannic quality slightly deeper than Dolcetto.

Three word review: Dramatic Luxury Lite

La Maggiorina Le Piane 2009 (Colline Novaresi DOC, Piedmont) from Lea & Sandeman, £12.95 per bottle

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In Burgundy in 1916, the Negociant Chauvenet sponsored the author Colette to support the Negociants against the local Growers.

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The red colour of Italian cars is not just any red. It comes from a long history of rules, mostly developed between the World Wars, from when car racing began. Different countries were assigned different colours: blue for French cars, white for German cars and, of course, British cars were racing green. Red was assigned for Italian race cars and now, the red colour of Alfa Romeo, Maserati and Ferrari is instantly recognisable as a "race red" (or Rosso Corsa).

All these rules have a history, which gain sense from the time, but most people today know what is meant by Ferrari Red. Just as with Italian car colours, and a lot of things in Italy, Italian wines have many rules. So it is worth considering what the proposed changes in the rules mean, especially when on the 15^th December, the 15 board members proposed to change Rosso di Montalcino from 100% to 85% guaranteed Sangiovese.

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This wine had the place smelling like Christmas for a week.

Can I give you a tasting note from broken bottle? At around £120 - £140 per bottle, I have to at least try... I was down on my hands and knees licking the floor. Risking shards of glass in my tongue just to have a taste.

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Well.

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As Nabokov puts it, "This is the whole of the story and we might have left it at that had there not been profit and pleasure in the telling..."

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