The Wildman of Wagram Arnold Holzer
Austrian Wine is largely a young person's game - and for good reason! In the mid 80's after a string of cold vintages, some Austrian wine makers found that adding antifreeze to their wine gave the appearance of ripeness in lieu of fruit ripeness. While the practice was of course highly illegal and potentially lethal, it saved a couple of vintages. People were confounded by how these wine makers had achieved what they achieved in cold, wet vintages. They were eventually rumbled when someone tried to deduct anti-freeze on their tax return. Dominos fell and the practice was found to be alarmingly wide spread. It was parodied on The Simpsons when Bart goes to France (presumably if they had stuck with Austria, American audiences would've wondered where the kangaroos were). Austrian Wine took a long while to recover.
Recover it did, with the strictest wine making laws on the planet to make sure that never again could anything untoward pass into their wines. When Austria re-emerged on the winescene it was a triumphant return. Austrian flags adorned the (overwhelmingly screwtop) bottles, with indigenous grapes making up 99.9% of the production. Dry whites and stylish reds abound, and suddenly Austria could do no wrong. A new generation of wunderkind like Arnold Holzer dominated winemaking.
Now a grizzled 35 year old, Arnold Holzer has been helming operations at the family estate for 15 years. Impressing himself on more than just vineyard management and winemaking, he has helped formulate one of the most distinctive brand identities in the wine world, with labels and wines that are brimming with unique personaliy. Vibrant labels and ultra pure wines made from indigenous Austrian varieties such as Gruner Veltliner and Zweigelt, with some rare ones such as Roter Veltliner and a curveball or two in the form of skin contact Muller Thurgau and deadly Rieslings.
Gruner Veltliner is known for having re-appearing acidity, which sounds like something out of Willy Wonka. ZERO-G is his entry level Gruner and will be familar to many due to it's prolific presence on the wine lists of Dublin. It is named after the mountain goats that dot the Wagram hillsides, seeminly defying gravity. The red ZERO-G is made from Zweigelt, a bright and light wine that is none the less super intense in flavour, with crunchy fruit and stunning acidity. There is also another Zweigelt; Blauer Zweigelt, which sees a bit of oak, making it an altogether more serious wine. LIMIT Gruner is a less conventional Gruner, with a little skin contact to increase the depth and complexity but keep the clean incisive fruit, it's grown off sandy soil, which imparts beautiful white and pink fruit flavours, backed by stunning acidity.
INVASION OF GREAT TASTE is a great intro to Orange Wine (white wine made with a little skin contact - there are not oranges in it!). It is made from Muller-Thurgau, a hybrid variety made in a lab - a test tube wine. More interesting is the story of the label, it used to feature the full line of space invaders from the iconic 8's computer game. Atari send a cease and decist letter to make him stop using the trade marked space invader image. Instead of creating a new label, he modified the existing label within the confines of the copyright infringement claim and clapped back to the litigious and eagle eyed tech giant as a nice little F you! Lastly, my favourite, Roter Veltliner is a super rare variety, that is very hard to grow (hence the fickle diva on the label) DAS GEHOLZ is singularly unique, a terroir-led Wagram beauty with a little creamy oak, that seems to encompass the whole Holzer schtick.
