Austria’s spectacular 2021s

This sees a little skin contact. It’s really textured, with incredible density. This fills the mouth, there’s a coolness here, but also explosive fruit, floral notes, and just a hint of herbal notes too. This is brilliant.

The estate’s highest plots - 350m altitude. Lighter soil, and picked two weeks later than the other Grüner plots. Very cool and floral, spicy with orange blossom. Smokiness and coolness, and then a herbal character. Lots of energy here, this is so long and finely judged.

Incredibly poor soils, where slate starts after just 50cm of hummus. Really savoury and intense. So much grip here, this is wonderfully balanced and pure, with incredible intensity. Seems to fan out on the finish, floral, ripe stone fruit and then lots of crushed stones and loads of salinity, too. So powerful, and mineral. Bitterness on the finish - this is spectacularly cool and suave.

Stein is a district within Krems, at the most western end of the area, near Wachau. This comes from a terraced vineyard, with plenty of sand in the soil. Lots of spice on the nose, lots of stone fruit too. Slightly smoky, really nice vibrant fruit, and there’s a breadth that comes across the palate. A hint of bitterness on the finish,