2019 Manni Nossing Grüner Veltliner Review And Tasting Notes
Once you have tasted the 2019 Manni Nossing Grüner Veltliner there is no turning back. Very trivially it is defined as one of the best wines in the category, the best Gruner Veltliner in Italy, but this is just a foolish tautology. Nobody cares whether it is the best or not. Interested in search engines. What a wine lover feels in this wine is the crystalline and fierce fusion between subtle elegance, the salt of the Dolomites and the passion of a unique, rebellious and nonconformist winemaker.
This Manni Nossing Gruner Veltliner 2019 is great because it goes beyond the usual spicy and aromatic Grüner homework and digs into the depths of the mountains. Dare with a cheeky mineral profile, while not giving up a seductive softness. The distinctly green notes typical of Gruner are just a pretext to elevate and give an aromatic context to the sapidity, to the finesse that comes from wines produced at high altitudes.
There is no fat or complacency in this bracing South Tyrolean white wine. There is no redundancy, but only imaginative and epiphanic crudity. A naked meal that flows fiery, but tamed by a unique sensitivity. The structure underlies the salt and the citrus momentum. It is not mellow and nutty, but bold and futuristic in the stratification that expands, it becomes volume, however, never arrogance. The structure is there, but it is metaphysical and translucent, imbued with flowers, direct, enveloping.
How it is produced
The vineyards are located on the hills around Brixen, six hectares tended cleanly by a real farmer, without the use of pesticides or herbicides. Harvest at the end of September, spontaneous fermentation and then rapid aging in acacia barrels, just to give it a little roundness, but don’t expect to find vanilla and tobacco in this wine. It is the aromatic purity that dominates: the spirit of the vine emerges with arrogance.
Organoleptic characteristics
Yellow color like the light of a belle époque gas lamp modeling the terrace of the café in the evening by Van Gogh. A perturbing but severe nose. Yes, it is aromatic and spicy, but it is the flowers, the delicate and ephebic notes that emerge. The mountain theme returns to the palate. It moves sinuously, sculpted, with exceptional freshness, and hints of salt that support a structure that is never banal, never too lean, but without useless arabesques. Sharp and bare, energetic, it has character to spare and does not give in to the flattery of aromatic wine and that’s it.
Price
15-17 euros for the 2020 vintage. If you can, always leave it 3-4 years, so that it rounds off the corners and transforms Parma violets into an amazing potpourri.
Food pairings
With this spiciness and 80’s salt flavor it is amazing for all Chinese fish cuisine, Thai dishes or chicken with almonds. Try it with Chicken Cacciatore, Vitello Tonnato, pasta alla carbonara, Pad Thai.