Grüner Veltliner Riede Braunsdorfer "Fuchs & Dachs" 2018

A Grüner Veltliner built on clarity and tension: 11.5% ABV, a lean body, paired with power and a firm drive. On the nose, ripe white-fleshed fruit, grapefruit, and lemon, herbs and stone, followed by pear cream, some brioche, oak, and an ethereal touch of mint.

The Steiner Braunsdorfer vineyard is situated in a side valley of the Danube at around 250 metres above sea level: four to five metres of loess over bare rock, very steep, with the roughly 50-year-old vines planted on narrow terraces with a 2.4-metre-high canopy. The Lang family has been farming the site for four years and is converting it to Demeter certification. The vineyard owes its name to the badgers that dig their setts into the loess, joined by foxes during cold winters.

Grüner Veltliner with a small proportion of 90-year-old vines from the Steiner Schreck site. Harvested on 31 August, around 70 days after flowering, with a pH of 3.0; hence the 11.5% ABV. Two days of slow, reductive pressing on a custom-designed 100-tonne beam press, after which the juice is allowed to brown. Spontaneous fermentation with 3 to 5% destemmed whole berries undergoing intracellular fermentation, restarting the process in the 9 °C cool cellar. Two years of full lees aging in large Stockinger wooden casks, bottled unfiltered in November 2020.

Creamy and melting on the attack, the acidity ripe yet vital, the texture silky from the extended lees contact. Underpinned by a cool, vibrating minerality. Body and power are present, yet the wine remains austere and sinewy. The cask was used for the first time for this wine, resulting in a distinct oak imprint that integrates seamlessly into the loess-grown Veltliner.

Roasted white asparagus with egg yolk cream and lemongrass emulsion, karaage with Japanese mayonnaise, and dim sum with pork and prawns alongside a glass noodle salad with coriander.

Markus Lang designed aircraft for 25 years before inheriting a vineyard; the beam press is his own design, and the cellar is a tunnel carved into gneiss at a constant 9 °C. Minimally sulphured, Demeter logo on the label.