Ebner-Ebenauer Gruner Veltiner Sauberg 2023

It always amazes me how wine and history collide.

On March 13, 1938, Hitler began the Anschluss of Austria — the "joining" of Austria into the Third Reich. Moving quickly on his larger ambitions, he came to Marion Ebner-Ebenauer's hometown of Poysdorf, in the Weinviertel, and did something that still strikes me as almost surreally audacious: he shifted an entire river. Literally redirected a waterway so he could drive heavier artillery into Czechoslovakia, which he did on March 15, 1939.

When the war ended, Marion's grandfather surveyed what remained of his estate. His home was burnt to the ground. His winery was rubble. And his prime vineyard of Grüner Veltliner was, where it had always been, now a river.

Very meticulously, and with the kind of recondite stubbornness that only a man who has lost everything and refused to accept it can muster, he began shifting Poysdorf's river slowly back into position. Vine by vine, parcel by parcel, he rebuilt what Hitler had literally washed away.

The Ebner-Ebenauer estate has existed for over 400 years. But it is that grandfather's impossible act of reconstruction that laid the foundation for what Marion and her husband Manfred have built today — which is, by any serious measure, one of Austria's greatest wine estates.

In 2022, the Austrian government awarded them Winemaker of the Year. More significantly, it was the first time in the award's history that the prize went to a couple rather than just the man of the pair. Long overdue, and entirely deserved.

Marion herself described the dynamic to me perfectly: she is "joie de vivre, vibrant with energy and always looking for new challenges." Manfred is "the calm and circumspect experimenter with a love of Burgundy, who is happiest working in the cellar, studying the wines." Together they are, in the most tendresse-inflected sense of the word, formidable.

Today I want to introduce you to their Sauberg Grüner Veltliner — a step deeper into the estate than the Poysdorf blend I've offered before, and one of the most compelling single-vineyard Grüners I have tasted in years.

The Sauberg is one of Ebner-Ebenauer's finest parcels, planted on loess soils over limestone in the Weinviertel — the same ancient geology that gives great Austrian whites their signature combination of weight and mineral precision. Marion and Manfred have spent years shrinking the estate down to its very best land, which creates an unusual and enviable problem: they now make more single-vineyard Grand Cru wines than anything else. The Sauberg is exactly that — serious, site-specific Grüner Veltliner from exceptional ground, farmed with the obsessive attention to detail that won them Austria's highest honor.

The 2023 opens with ripe pear, yellow apple, Meyer lemon, white pepper and fresh herbs — the classic Grüner aromatics, rendered with unusual precision and depth. With air, chamomile, fennel pollen and wet chalk emerge, lending a complexity that has no business existing at this price point. The palate is concentrated but never heavy, energized by bright acidity and a long, saline mineral finish that keeps pulling you back to the glass.

Like the best white Burgundy — and I say this without fustian exaggeration — this wine is simultaneously generous and crystalline. It is Grüner Veltliner at a serious level. Like a Degas ballerina — perfectly etched into timeless freeze-frame, yet displaying the vibrant delicacy of energy and motion.

Pour it with Wiener schnitzel, roast chicken, pork loin with herbs, freshwater trout, asparagus, or anything with mushrooms and spring vegetables. Or simply open it on a quiet evening and let it remind you that Austria's greatest white wines belong in any serious conversation about the world's finest.

Ebner-Ebenauer's wines are rarely imported into the United States, and when they are, they rarely survive long enough to reach a retail shelf. We have a small allocation of the Sauberg and it will not last.