2019 Pratsch Grüner Veltliner Riede Rotenpüllen Niederösterreich 750 ml

“If you were to look up Grüner in a textbook, this would appear,” said Wine Enthusiast about the stellar 92-point 2019 Pratsch Grüner Veltliner Riede Rotenpüllen. 

This is Grüner at its vivid, focused best. A bottle that somms from coast to coast snap up for their wine bars, it’s one of the finest and most expressive value-whites on the market. Grüner fans will be enamored with it, and devotees of bright, unoaked classics like Pinot Grigio and Sauvignon Blanc will discover a newfound obsession that massively overdelivers. 

With exhilarating aromas of sun-kissed citrus, chamomile, minerally schist, and limestone, the 2019 Pratsch gives premier white wines a serious challenge. Its zippy acidity keeps the palate lively and cleansing, while starfruit and Meyer lemon yield to a memorable sage note on the finish. 

This is the work of Stefan Pratsch, a winemaking prodigy who took the reins at his family’s eighth-generation winery at just 15 years of age. His precocity allowed his parents, Wilhelm and Anneliese, to focus on tending the vineyards, which they converted to 100% organic farming in the early 1990s—well before cover crops and natural fertilizers were fashionable..

From their small estate, perched on glacier-sculpted rolling hills that rise into the Carpathian Mountains, the family promotes the ripening of their grapes through constant hand-pruning and high, sun-exposed vine trellising. Stefan’s intuitive approach elevates this fruit into scintillating wines that capture the estate’s immaculate terroir—which he does perfectly with the single-vineyard 2019 Riede Rotenpüllen. Not only does it convey the warmth of the sunny, south-facing site on which it grows, but it also displays a combination of minerality, concentration, and complexity that separates it from its peers.