That Certain Je Ne Sais Quoi

If you are going to pick a wine to drink regularly, it ought to offer the promise of continuing interest. Variability is more desirable than unvarying high quality (that's my clumsy rewording of Trollope - I do apologise).

So it a definite bonus to find that Salomon Groovey Grüner Veltliner 07 is both changeable and tasty. This time around it smells mealy, like cooked rice or barley, and then perhaps a little metallic, but on other occasions it has smelt of lime jelly, as if it were Riesling, or green and grassy like a Sauvignon. Today it tastes very clean, and the white pepper note is very clear. On other occasions the green-ness is to the fore, and on yet others it is off-dry.

I'm sure these particular differences are down to me, since Salomon Undhof are skillful winemakers, and it is bottled under stelvin, but I know I'm not alone in finding interesting variations in the Groovey. It is never quite intense enough to be an out and out great wine, but still, it is an excellent and complex 4.

Hallucinatory grass and home made lemonade

Hey, it looks very green... Oh no, hang on, that's the bottle, it's actually fairly yellow, albeit going watery at the rim. And the nose is big, aromatic, but I'm over the sauvignon blanc-a-like notion I had about this wine last year, so it's becoming clear that any grassiness is psychosomatic grassiness. So what is that nose? TallAsAVan does bang on about white pepper, but that isn't quite it, or it isn't all of it. Never mind, let's taste it and come back to the nose.

Watery, medium bodied, very very refreshing. Like home made lemonade - icy-fresh-water-&-lemon-juice-refreshing. But by golly, there is a wee bit of white pepper in there, especially in the finish, which is long and very satisfying. This is a good one. Back to the nose. It remains hard to pin down. Maybe a touch of caramelised sugar. It's a good un. Salomon Groovey gruner veltliner 02004, under cork, 15/20, from the Kremstal region of Austria to you via Oddbins for £6.49.

PS after a full glass of this the pepperiness comes through more clearly. Nice one, TallAsAVan.