2019 Sohm & Kracher Gruner Veltliner Lion Niederosterreich 750 ml

You’d expect a collaboration between one of the greatest sommeliers in the world and a legendary wine estate to produce fantastic wine—but you might not guess that the bottling would go for $22. Sohm & Kracher’s Lion Grüner Veltliner is one of the world’s great wine values—a next level bottling from two maniacally focused people that we can offer for the cost of a fairly priced Mâcon.

This bright, stainless steel-fermented and -aged white is the brainchild of Aldo Sohm—wine director at Michelin three-starred Le Bernardin and a winner of the “Best Sommelier in the World” competition—and Gerhard Kracher, one of the legends of Austrian winemaking, known for dessert wines that dot Michelin-starred wine lists across the globe and command prices that rival d’Yquem. 

Their ‘19 Lion Grüner Veltliner is one of the most adaptable whites we’ve tried this year. As Aldo says, it’s a wine “you can have on the beach, you can have it with a salad, sushi… it works whenever!” We’ve put it to the test, and it always passes with flying colors, delivering a bright, crisp experience with astounding complexity for its price.

Our tasting notes read “like Beethoven’s 5th symphony… an elevated experience… every part is playing in harmony at the right time.” It drinks like a $40 bottle, with a complex, swirling nose of crushed rocks, white flowers, and Grüner Veltliner’s signature white pepper. The palate has a laser-like focus, with lime zest, crunchy white peach, and a salty minerality that lingers, demanding another sip.

Sohm & Kracher work out of Austria’s Weinviertel (“wine quarter”), a region with a long growing history but lots of hidden-gem vineyards, allowing the pair to access top sites at accessible prices, and pass those savings along. This has all the minerality and precision of a federspiel from the Wachau, but without the $40+ price tag, making it a perfect bottling to stock up on. 

Aldo Sohm is one of the world’s great wine minds. He’s an incredible taster and one of the best-connected people in fine wine—so it’s not a surprise that when he jumped into the world of winemaking, it would be with a legendary estate as his partner. On the other side, the Kracher family’s last big partnership was with California legends Sine Qua Non, which resulted in multiple 100-point scores, so having both of these icons working together practically assures greatness.

Sohm & Kracher’s Lion Grüner Veltliner is what happens when two towering figures in the wine world make an affordable bottling out of one of the world’s great wine grapes. When we caught up to talk about wine, Aldo described Grüner Veltliner as “a great food all-arounder” and we agree—his Lion is a bottling that’s going to thrill lovers of crisp, unoaked white wines across the board. As you might expect, not much of this is made (and most of it is snapped up by top restaurants in New York), so stocking up now is essential if you want an adequate supply.