2022 Pratsch Grüner Veltliner Riede Rotenpüllen Niederösterreich 750 ml

“If you were to look up Grüner in a textbook, this would appear,” Wine Enthusiast once said about the Pratsch Grüner Veltliner Riede Rotenpüllen. This is Grüner Veltliner at its vivid, focused best. Grown on vines that have been organic for nearly three decades, it’s a bottle that sommeliers from coast to coast snap up.

It’s the work of Stefan Pratsch, a winemaking prodigy who took the reins at his family’s eighth-generation winery at just 15 years of age. His precocity allowed his parents, Wilhelm and Anneliese, to focus on tending the vineyards, which they converted to 100% organic farming in the early 1990s—well before cover crops and natural fertilizers were fashionable.

From their small estate, perched on glacier-sculpted rolling hills that rise into the Carpathian Mountains, the family promotes the ripening of their grapes through constant hand-pruning and high, sun-exposed vine trellising. Pratsch’s intuitive approach elevates this fruit into scintillating wines that capture the estate’s immaculate terroir—which he does perfectly with the single-vineyard 2022 Riede Rotenpüllen.

Stefan Pratsch’s 2022 Riede Rotenpüllen hails from an excellent vintage whose end-of-summer warmth guaranteed an early, easy harvest with beautifully expressive fruit and soft textures. It’ absolutely shines at the table.

Take it from us: This is one of the finest and most expressive white values on the market. Grüner fans will flip for it, and devotees of bright, unoaked classics like Pinot Grigio and Sauvignon Blanc should make room for this newfound obsession.