Newsflash! OK, not a newsflash in the strict sense of the word. On this occasion, it’s the name given to the newsletter from Laurenz Maria Moser V, a man whose family founded the famous Lenz Moser wine company in Austria, and who now, with his Laurenz V range, seems to have taken it upon himself to spread the Gruner gospel around the world.
The July issue of Newsflash has just appeared, and I’d normally have linked to it on the Laurenz V web page, but for some reason it only goes up to June at the moment.
Anyway, the bit in it that caught my eye was about plantings of Gruner Veltliner. Austria still dominates, with 17,151 hectares. However… ‘Laurenz Maria drank Gruner grown in Pennsylvania lately (pas mal ;-), the biggest other countries are Hungary (2 ha), Czech Republic (1 ha), Slovenia (1 ha), Australia (50 ha), New Zealand (yes, 20 ha), and a bit in Argentina (2 ha), China and some in the USA (Napa Valley) – THE IDEA SEEMS TO SPREAD!’
I’m a big fan of Gruner from Austria, and it’ll be interesting to see whether other countries can capture the minerally purity of the top Austrian wines. I think Lark Hill in Canberra produced the first Aussie version in 2009. Look out too in the near future for New Zealand Gruner, courtesy of winemaking supremo Matt Thomson.
Simon, I do not understand the numbers you gave. For instance according to the data I have the total Gruner Veltliner vineyards area in Czech Republic is around 2000 ha. GV makes around 11% of their total wine production.
Anyway, I need a bottle (in fact, at least a case!) of well chilled GV to survive this heat we now have in Poland
Am only quoting the figures that were in the piece. But yes, no surprise that the Czech Republic grows quite a bit of GV.
Hi,
from what I know and heard I doubt the numbers for Australia and New Zealand – it should be much less.
It could be that quite a bit has been planted in the wake of the critical approval for Lark Hill’s 09 GV. Anyone in Aus or NZ able to confirm the figures from the Laurenz V piece?
Talking with the suppliers of grape vines in New Zealand, enough plants have been supplied to give 20-25ha in NZ thus far.
There has been at least 1 GV released in 09 from Coopers Creek and there will be a couple more this year including our first one from Forrest Estate in Marlborough.
Hi Simon,
it seems that the official figures for NZ are much lower than the real plantings (what I’ve heard from other sources). So the 20 for NZ might be true.
Official stats: page 8 and 18
Interesting discussion – but I can confirm that the Australian plantings are no more than about 6-8 hectares in total – and I have 3 of them. We (Hahndorf Hill Winery) have just released our first vintage 2010 GV and it does have that great purity and minerality that I love….
Larry
Adelaide Hills
Australia
to add my 2 cents: I think that the CEE numbers are generally way to low. I wonder where Laurenz V got the numbers from.
Btw: the pdf at Laurenz V. is here – it says they will check figures http://www.laurenzfive.com/en/