The 2007 Gruner Veltliner Federspiel Kollmitz features beet root, green bean, and saline minerality in a firmly-textured, slightly austere, but well-concentrated, meaty wine that finishes with an invigorating combination of mineral, citrus zest, and herbal pungency and salinity. I would plan on enjoying this over the next 2-3 years. Roman Horvath and Heinz Frischengruber are on a roll now, so one wants to root for their retaining the marvelous value that has distinguished Freie Weingartner wines in their best periods, because top-flight Wachau wines at prices like theirs are scarcely available anywhere else. Yields on Gruner Veltliner in 2007 were a bit high for optimal, Frischengruber opines, but then, the yields in Riesling obviously came at the expense of botrytis. And it goes without saying that selectivity is a challenge in coop situations, even though one which the team here has previously proven themselves capable of meeting. Nearly 40% of production was picked as Steinfeder, a quality grade all but missing last year, and whose volume in this vintage permitted enhanced attention to the fruit that remained for Federspiel and Smaragd. All of the wines reviewed below are bottled under the -Domane Wachau- label.Importer: Vin Divino, Chicago, IL; tel. (773) 334-6700.

Representing a significant step up in quality as well as a more classic example of its genre than this year’s “Terrassen” bottling, the 2006 Gruner Veltliner Federspiel Kollmitz showed a lovely combination of fresh lime, iris, and linden flower in a faux Riesling nose; a clear, satin-textured palate marked by cress, beet, and lime; and a refreshing, satisfyingly long finish. I am delighted to report that with 2006, director Roman Horvath and oenologist Heinz Frischengruber have brought the Freie Weingartner coop back to the front ranks of Austrian viticulture. Any who have followed – sometimes with frustration and sorrow – the past half dozen years in the history of this Wachau institution can only express relief, admiration, and elation. Success here is all the more important to American consumers today, inasmuch as wine from most of the top Wachau addresses is becoming unaffordable for many of us to drink on a regular basis, not to mention for restaurants to offer by the glass. If a few of the lower-level, higher-volume bottlings this year represented a slight dip in quality, that was to be expected given the nature of the vintage and the huge number of growers who supply fruit to this venture. For similar reasons, the Freie Weingartner were bound to deal with a certain amount of botrytis this year, but in the dry wines they seem to have retained only that which would confer positive spice and richness, bottling some improbably successful and refined sweet wines as an outlet for the rest.Importer: Vin Divino, Chicago, IL; tel. (773) 334-6700.