Weszeli Caractere Gruner Veltliner 2023

Davis Weszeli took over a respected Langenlois estate in 2011 and rebuilt it around a philosophy he calls Terrafactum: the conviction that the vineyard, not the cellar, makes the wine. The estate's thirty hectares of Grüner Veltliner and Riesling in the Kamptal are farmed organically with Demeter certification, largely by hand. Caractère draws Grüner Veltliner from three northern Kamptal sites, Steinhaus, Steinmassl, and Steinberg, planted in 1959 over gneiss, mica schist, and shell limestone. The parcels are vinified separately, one portion spending several days on the skins, the rest slowly whole-bunch pressed, then fermented spontaneously with wild yeasts and rested eight months on the fine lees in steel. Exotic and white-fruited aromas turn delicately spicy on a firm, juicy, linear palate. A geology lesson in a Grüner Veltliner.