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Now Viewing: Glatzer Walter
The Carnuntum region is a hop, skip and a jump east of Vienna. If you can figure exactly how to get out of the city of Vienna, you're about a 20 minute ride to Göttlesbrunn where you'll find several interesting wineries. One of the most famed is that of Walter Glatzer. He owns about 16 hectares of vineyards there, producing about 10,000 cases of wine annually. We've frequently been attracted to Glatzer's wines, sometimes finding a white wine or two to be to our taste. Other times it's a red. I was invited to a major Austrian Bacchanalia in June of 2004 and we had a couple of Glatzer wines which were absolutely delicious! The wine which attracts the most attention for this estate is a red blend called "Gotinsprun," an ancient version of his hometown of Göttlesbrunn. No matter how you say it, this wine is delicious! We currently have the 2000 vintage Gotinsprun in the shop, a wine that's predominantly Blaufränkisch, Cabernet, Merlot and Zweigelt. A more recent rendition (not here yet) features a bit of Syrah, too! The Glatzer wines tend to be reasonably priced. And people flock to his cellar door because of this price/value ratio... But Gotinsprun is not inexpensive. Though I suppose if you compare it to a similar quality Super-Tuscan or chi-chi Australian Shiraz, you'd find this downright sensibly-priced. The wine certainly features oak. But it's not just a carpenter's delight. There are interesting vineyard and fruit components here as well. I find this drinkable now, but then I find most good, balanced wines to be interesting in their youth. I tasted a fantastically good St. Laurent from Glatzer. The 2003 is a rather warm vintage, so the grapes had little difficulty in achieving an optimum level of sugar. This variety is sometimes likened to Pinot Noir, but I can't say this wine is particularly Burgundian in style. It's more like an exuberantly berryish, faintly floral, nicely oaked Zinfandel except it doesn't have the prune or raisined notes of many Zins. Youthful and drinkable now....delicious.
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