Asheville’s Best Free Wine Tasting – This Saturday, August 22nd from 2-5 p.m. – Let’s get one thing straight — MOST AUSTRIAN WINES ARE DRY! Yes, the country does make some dessert wines, but the mass majority of her wines are fermented completely dry. Don’t trust us, stop by and taste for yourself. We know it’s the weekend of the Asheville Wine and Food Festival, but if you’re not going or if you can come by before or after the Grand Tasting, stop in and taste some of the finest Austrian wines you’ll find in town. Taste, learn, and save up to 20% off on all of the tasting wines!
The Wines
1. 2014 Brunn Gruner Veltliner (Niederosterreich, Austria) – Gruner Veltliner is by far Austria’s most famous and important grape variety. The grape can yield everything from light and crisp whites to fuller and more complex ones. This liter bottled beauty is light and crisp, but assertively flavored with bright lemon, lime, and green apple aromas and flavors galore. With some subtle floral notes and a just a whiff of wet rock (aka mineral), this is a ton of white wine for the money.
2. 2014 Muller Grossmann Gruner Veltliner “Groser Satz” (Kremstal, Austria) – This will give you a glimpse and a taste at more intensely flavored and aromatic Gruner Veltliner. From a small family owned, organic wine farm, this single vineyard wine is exploding with good stuff!! Rated 90 points by Wine Enthusiast, it is fresh, juicy and refreshing with notes of green pear, lime, grapefruit zest, and mineral complexity. Wow!!!
3. 2014 Umathum Rosa Rose (Burgenland, Austria) – Austria also makes some impressive dry roses and this is one of the best we’ve ever tried! A blend of Zweigelt, Blaufrankisch, and Saint Laurent, this is one of the “bigger” roses we’ve ever encountered. Boasting loads of ripe berry fruit, pepper, and earth, this is a regal rose if ever there were one! 92 points Wine and Spirits, 91 points Wine Enthusiast