Peter Veyder-Malberg left advertising to devote his life to the steep, hand-farmed terraces of Austria’s Wachau. His tiny estate in the Spitzer Graben, the appellation’s coldest western reach, produces fewer than a thousand cases a year across all wines. He farms organically without tractors, dry-farms where others say it’s impossible, and has opted out of the Wachau Codex to let his vineyards speak for themselves. His vines range from thirty to over seventy years old.

The Viessling bottling comes from north-facing vineyards in the Spitzer Graben where grapes ripen very late. Peter describes this as grüner veltliner the way it used to taste: intensely crisp, straw-yellow, with a peppery mineral spiciness that recalls an older style of Wachau winemaking. Viessling as a village sits as a counterpoint to the much warmer eastern terroir of the appellation, and the wine carries that coolness from start to finish.

The 2024 delivers the lively acidity that Veyder-Malberg wines are known for, balancing the peppery bite of the variety against the lean, stony character of the Spitzer Graben. This is grüner veltliner at its most transparent and site-driven, with a mineral tension that lingers well past the finish.