Glaser and Glaser Retzer Liebling Gruner Veltliner 2025

Let me tell you about a town you have never heard of that I find completely wonderful.

Retz is a medieval walled village in Lower Austria’s Weinviertel, about 70 kilometers northwest of Vienna, pressed against the Czech border where rolling hills catch the continental winds and loess soils give way to limestone-rich ground that has been growing Grüner Veltliner since before anyone was keeping records. It is charming in the particular way that small Austrian wine towns are charming — unhurried, serious about food, serious about wine, and entirely unconcerned with whether the rest of the world knows it exists.

What makes Retz truly remarkable is what lies beneath it.

Under the medieval streets runs a labyrinth of historic wine cellars — the Retzer Erlebniskeller — carved out over centuries by winemakers who understood that the ideal temperature for aging wine is found not above the ground but below it. Miles of tunnel. Generations of bottles. A town that built its culture literally underground, around the conviction that Grüner Veltliner grown on these particular hills deserves to be preserved and celebrated with that kind of devotion.

Retz is also — and this tells you everything about the culture of the place — the first Slow Food Village in all of Lower Austria. These are people who take their time. Their food. Their wine. Even their cucumbers, which were traditionally grown between the vines and fermented in the old way, have become a regional delicacy. When a town’s cucumbers achieve protected cultural status, you know the place has its priorities exactly right.

Into this world was born my friend Glazer.

He farms in the vineyards surrounding Retz with the quiet conviction of someone who does not need the wine world’s attention to know he is doing something right. He believes — and having tasted his wines, I am entirely persuaded — that the ground around Retz produces some of the most special Grüner Veltliner in Austria.

This is not gasconade. The Weinviertel was the first wine region in the country to receive DAC status, back in 2003, with Grüner Veltliner as the only permitted variety. That recognition made the point formally: this grape, grown on this ground, is central to the identity of the region. Glazer farms within that tradition and prefers to remain under the radar. I respect that completely. But I also think you should know about him.

Now — the grape, briefly, for those who have not met it yet.

Grüner Veltliner. GruVee, for short, because life is too short for five-syllable grape names at the dinner table. Austria’s great native white variety, deeply prized at home, is almost impossible to find abroad — because what little makes it out of the country gets immediately hoovered up by the Germans, the Italians and the Swiss, who have been doing this for decades and show no signs of stopping. The Habsburg Hoover, I call it. The Austro-Hungarian Empire dissolved in 1918, but its neighbors never forgot what these wines tasted like.

GruVee has a particular magic — the aromatic vibrancy of Sauvignon Blanc married to the sensual palate weight of white Burgundy, yet entirely its own creature, native to Austrian soil and Austrian culture in a way that no comparison quite captures. If you enjoy either of those wines and want to try something new, Grüner Veltliner will dazzle you.

In the glass, the harlequin green-yellow color of Liebling simply laughs with the optimism of spring. Crack it open and juicy Bartlett and Starkrimson pear dance with Kaffir lime, tropical fruits and a subtle hint of basil — that white pepper and herbal signature that is Grüner’s most distinctive calling card, fully present but never bumptious. The finish is creamy and fleshy, leaving an exotic touch of green tea that lingers pleasantly and immediately makes you want another glass.

Liebling is Austrian for “dearest.” And this little darling of a wine — from the underground cellars and cucumber vines of a charming walled town that the rest of the wine world has not found yet — is perfect for your Easter table, a spring dinner, a warm afternoon on the porch or a Tuesday evening when you want something genuinely delicious and slightly unexpected.

A little kiss from Retz.