Harvested November 2 – which isn’t late for this particular bottling – Hitzbergers’ 2010 Gruner Veltliner Federspiel Rotes Tor puts me in mind of a rich lentil and vegetable broth accented with pungent green herbs, lemon zest, salt, and white pepper. Considering the propensity for Rotes Tor Gruner Veltliner – not to mention so many wines of this vintage – to exhibit flavors of roasted, autumnal root vegetables, here we have more of a summer garden of peas, waxed beans, and sweet peppers. Hints of nut oils join citrus zest for faintly bitter and invigorating counterpoint in a satisfyingly lingering, juicy finish. Enjoy this over the next decade. Given the penchant at this address for late harvest; considerable skin contact; and must aeration, I was not surprised to learn from Franz Hirtzberger Junior that only their Riesling Federspiel had been at all de-acidified. “If there’d been even a bit more hanging out there though,” he notes “then we wouldn’t have made it” – i.e. acheived ripe grapes. “We learned our lesson from 1996,” as Hirtzberger Senior saw it, namely not to harvest – despite ongoing crop loss and fear of ignoble rot (though in this case that didn’t materialize) – until the acids finally began to diminish and the skins to properly ripen. Importer: Vin Divino, Chicago, IL; tel. (773) 334-6700