Thank God it´s Friday!

Why weird? This is the combination Alois Kracher loves, telling that chardonnay is for power and structure, while welschriesling adds the finesse, thus taking the classic Sauternes formula (where semillon and sauvignon play the same roles) as an example.

Btw, what was the vintage?

M.

Mostly because it´s a combination I have not come across, and welschriesling has, in the books I´ve read, been dissed as a minor variety with little to recommend it. Alois Kracher is known to me by name and by the fact that mostly I can´t even dream of buying his wines, excellent though they are, because of their prices so high that oxygen is needed. That, unfortunately, is too often the case with producers who have reached a certain notoriety - also, to reach a certain notoriety, such discretion and work is needed that this must needs push the prices up into the stratosphere. Sort of Moment-22.

Cheers

Nils Gustaf

Thanks again for your eloquent postings, Nils. (I hope that the Royal Swedish Academy takes notice, for possible prize consideration, you never know ...)

The petroleum aroma is certainly a familiar signature of Botrytis but I don't know if that was the kerosene that your brother-in-law smelled.

Also by the way, today my first wine-newsgroup posting turns 21, and since I will be dining at a favorite restauant anyway I might raise a glass to its maturity. (It was a list of US wine publications, posted 5-Oct-83, net.wines of course, but owing to the spooling with the HP "Notes" software and the store-and-forward delays in those days it was fully public

Best to all -- Max

Trash you books, immediately! ;-)

Seriously: Welschriesling is a minor variety in its ability to make great dry whites, but when it comes to botrytis, it's really phantastic, probably capable of producing the purest expression of botrytis possible, at least that's common knowledge in Austria - and also my experience (although I have a soft spot for the two or three aromatic varieties, traminer, muscat, and possibly scheurebe/sämling).

So you have to put Vienna on your travel plans one of these days. I have a few in the cellar I'd love to share with someone who appreciates them. As great as they are - I simply don't drink them.

Very interesting - 2001 was just about the perfect botrytis year over here, the best since 1991, just about impossible *not* to bring in a trockenbeerenauslese (TBA). Must have been the result of a negative selection.

M.

"Michael Pronay" skrev i meddelandet news: snipped-for-privacy@pronay.com...

The sound you´re hearing is my document destroyer trashing Hugh Johnson and Oz Clark! Thank you for putting me right. This is very interesting, and, so far, in so far as I have been able to afford them, Austrian sweet wines have proved somewhat of a revelation to me.

We would love to help you make an incurable indention in you cellar! Unfortunately, we are not likely to go to Vienna in the near future, for off-topic reasons, so for the moment your treasures are safe :)))

You don´t say. I am not personally aquainted with Herr Schmeltzer, but I could put the question to him through Svend (the GWI). Svend says Schmelzer´s dry wines unfortunately have little to recommend them, and, in fact, the producer himself considers himself mostly a sticky producer (bit of bad punning there, I´m afraid), but also into reds. Can´t recall if I´ve tasted any of them - I know we had a red Austrian in a tasting Svend held in a local resto early this spring.

Cheers

Nils Gustaf

In fact I would love to share as many stickies with anybody. They are accumulating without ever anything being drunk, so the offer in priciple is not limited.

But there is another possibility: If you mail me you snail mail address (use reply button), maybe I could arrange to send you a bottle. (Right now, there is a 0.375 of 1997 Bouvier Beerenauslese No 2 next to me).

May I kindly ask you which Schmelzer we are talking about? There are a few around Gols, so first name and/or wife's first name and/or domain name and/or address would be appreciated.

M., going to Illmitz tomorrow where Alois offcially presents his 2002 stickies to the press - including enough Billecart-Salmon (Alois Kracher imports) to wash down the stickies ... ;-)

Michael, sorry for the sloppy follow-up (I had already deleted the message I wanted to respond to): Are you familiar with a Welschriesling from Josef Wurzinger in Tadten (Burgenland)? I had this (don't remember the vintage) while in Vienna in May and recall flavors of pineapple and candied fruit. I haven't been able to find a Wurzinger Welschriesling here in Germany, and the ones I have found have been nothing like it.

Thanks in advance for any feedback you can provide.

Dave Devine

Sorry, no.

That's the problem with Welschriesling. It makes beautifully fresh quaffing wines in the 10.5 to 11.5% range, espacially in Styria, where it's always the basic wine from every producer. Then it has been proven perfect to yield the best base wines for sparklers, in the Weinviertel region. As to "better" dry examples - 12.5 to 14%, unchaptalized of course - it's not nearly as successfull as many other grapes, and your Wurzinger example might have been a kind of a bingo hit that might not have been reproduced in a similar way the vintage. (And then, of course, there is Welschriesling with botrytis, where it's potentially world class).

M.

By all means.

On the slightly less than easily read label, I spy the name Georg Schmelzer, A-7122 Gols, Neuburggasse ??, tel +43(0)217373490, e-mail snipped-for-privacy@wein-schmelzer.at And it´s in Burgenland.

HTH

Nils Gustaf

That's the clue:

Their homepage being quite informative - with a large pic of bvrothers Horst and Georg Schmelzer -, I am sorry to say that not only I never met them, but I haven't even seen a single bottle yet. They are not among the first or second rank producers, but made it into the recently published "wein burgenland" book:

M.

Nils, I just got a subscription list from an Austrian retailer (and friend of mine, Franz Noitz in Krems, ) for Alois Kracher's 2002 Collection, ranging from EUR 25.00 to

If you post your fax number, I could fax it to you, if you like.

M.