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Showing results for tags 'Grüner Veltliner'.
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I have always loved this wine, and right now they have stacks of it at the Pentagon City Whole Foods for $16.99 a bottle. Two unusual things about the bottle itself: it's a 1 Liter bottle (most bottles are .750 ml, or 3/4 as much), and more interestingly, it has a "pop top" that you open like a bottle of Heineken - it's not twist-off, but a bottle opener does the trick. I think both of these qualities drive home exactly what this wine is: a wine to quaff like water. It's dirt cheap (Pentagon City Whole Foods cannot possibly have low prices, and I suspect the producer sells this ex-cellar for about $5 a liter - I don't know this, but it's certainly less than $10. This is not a wine to cellar and mature; it's a wine to guzzle, and if you don't finish it, you can stick the top right back on and save it for the next night. It has real Grüner Veltliner character, with no oak that I can detect - it's a fairly "dilute" wine, so oak would be positively overwhelming. This Hofer is organic, and is made in a sleepy little hamlet just a few miles north of Vienna (it's pretty amazing how Vienna, a big, powerful city, can taper off into serenity just a few miles to the north). It's impossible to cherish this wine as something sacred (because it's not), and it's impossible not to like this wine as something joyful (because it is) - it's like a really fun session beer that you don't feel guilty about splurging on because it's a few dollars. Having a "house wine" is a quaint, but rare concept in this day and age, but if you were to have one, this wouldn't be a bad place to start. Yes, I'm friends with Terry Theise, but I haven't spoken with him in months, and he has no idea I'm writing this. I know this wine very well from previous vintages, and have never not liked it. Think: pitchers of Budweiser, except good.
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