I never thought I would ever use the words ?groovy? to describe wine. Even lesser so, I never thought I would use the same word to describe a grape! But we live in interesting times. And I am still in Austria. Infer what you may…

Gru-vee (pronounced groovy) is the shortened name for Gr?ner Veltliner, the pride and joy of the Austrian wine industry. The only reason it has remained in the shadow is because the Austrian wine industry was itself facing numerous problems, scandals and pointed fingers.

But you can?t keep a good guy down, or in this case, a good grape. The grape is a fairly resistant variety and does well in certain regions of Austria. The wines are nice and racy with a good mouth-feel, a certain sensation of fattiness if you will which translates into what wine-tasters often refer to as roundness. A rounded wine has a nice richness about it. A wine which has acidity needs some roundness else it appears tart. It is a good word to use to describe wine. But don?t use any such words in a conversation with your girlfriend.

Gruvee has this uncanny aroma profile that ranges from lightly floral and hint white fruity all the way to peppery (peppery floral more to me) and spicy. And it is exactly this character that makes the wine so unusual to taste, each time evoking a different note, a varied response.

Some people may even age their wines in big barrels. Here, I prefer styles that have been stored in large old (second-or-third-use) barrels so that the effect of wood is minimal and the wine remains fruity with layers of complexity. Making wine in small toasted barrels may seem like a fad that?s catching on but there is no joy in drinking a wine that tastes like it was made by a carpenter in a woodshed rather than in the vineyards, under the watchful eye of Mother Nature.

The pairing possibilities and capabilities of this grape are legendary but I wasn?t too sure till as recently as a few weeks ago, in Beijing, at the International Congress of Chinese Food and Wine (organised by Asia?s leading wine authority, Ch?ng Poh Tiong), this grape took top honours as one which stunned with its versatility. The wines were as much at ease besides a prawn tempura, as they were with Pork belly and lamb curry.

Apart from the famed Br?ndlmayer, there are other equally prolific producers like, Nikolaihof, Schloss Gobelsburg , Rabl, Jurtschitsch, and Knoll who are on my list of top Gruvee producers; a list that runs into multiple pages.

And yet, the saddest thing to lament is that at the time of writing this article, not even one wine made from this grape (or any one wine from this country for that matter) exists in India. Such is the state of things. So obsessed are our dispassionate professionals of the country that their only measure of a good wine is how many points it has in some stupid listing. Reminds me encore of that Chinese curse, ?May you live in interesting times.?