2018 Weingut Stadt Krems Gruner Veltliner Kremstal Austria 750 ml

The last time we shared this benchmark white wine from Austria’s viticultural heartland, it lit up the Wine Access scoreboard, disappearing in record time and racking up rave reviews. We’re thrilled to share that we’ve hit another home run: Today we have more Stadt Krems Grüner Veltliner—the same wine we couldn’t keep on the shelves last summer—at our best price yet, just $17.00.

We suggest stocking up now, and saving this missive to enjoy with a glass of this crisp, citrus-scented Stadt Krems Grüner Veltliner in hand. 

Here’s how it happened: 

The tiny hatchback was packed with an unprecedented amount of wine expertise: Our own Sur Lucero was with three other Master Sommeliers, speeding up the slopes that look down on the Danube river, visiting the top Grüner Veltliner producers in the world.

They’d already crossed the biggest names of the Wachau—Prager, Rudi Pichler, and Veyder-Malberg—off their carefully curated list, as well as heavy hitters Schloss Gobelsburg and Bründlmayer. With just one day left, the group put their encyclopedic heads together to decide where to spend their precious last hours in one of the world’s white wine epicenters.

It was unanimous: They’d go to Weingut Stadt Krems, the 560-year-old winery that not only leads the Kremstal region, but sets the bar for Grüner Veltliner at an under-$20 price. The estate’s lineup blew Sur away with its quality, and he came away with an allocation of the 2018 Stadt Krems Grüner Veltliner for Wine Access members. It’s a stunning white wine that stands among some of the greats of Europe.

It’s rare that we can say an under-$20 wine stood tall on a tasting tour that included one world-famous estate after another, but that’s exactly what happened with Stadt Krems. It’s super-classic and crisp, with a silver tone and aromas of lychee fruit, kiwi, lemon, and lime.

Displaying the kind of laser focus and lively energy that we normally associate with $30+ prices, Stadt Krems is a minerally and mouthwatering sensory trip that shows exactly why Grüner Veltliner has gone from a little-known Austrian grape to one of the hottest varieties in wine. If you know it, you know how incredible this price is. If you’re a white wine fan who doesn’t know Grüner yet, this deal is the perfect introduction.

Stadt Krems was established 560 years ago to generate revenue for the hospital in the city of Krems, and is still owned by the city. The Kremstal region shares the same rocky terraced vineyards that produce the rich, generous Grüner Veltliners of the world-famous Wachau region. In fact, the area of Stein, where a large portion of the fruit in the 2018 Stadt Krems was grown, used to be a part of the Wachau.

The incredible value of Stadt Krems is simple: They’ve owned their land for centuries, which allows them to put out world-class wines at the kind of shockingly affordable prices that keep us reaching for the wine without hesitation. The Stadt Krems website calls the 2018 “one hell of a schnitzel wine,” but we love it anytime: at cocktail hour, or with oysters on the half shell, fresh cheeses, or simply served with great conversation.