Our deep and abiding affection for Austria’s Grüner Veltliner is well-established and ineradicable. So too is our love for the Burgenland, home to the country’s most dynamic red wines. So when we tasted Rosi Schuster’s “Aus Den Dorfen,” I was thrilled to have finally united both terroir and grape. What a killer value it is, too!

Crafted by one of Burgenland’s top producers, this is Grüner as you’ve rarely had it: softer and riper with the variety’s signature herbal spiciness alongside sun-kissed fruit. I just can’t help but make a Burgundy comparison: if the Wachau or Kremstal is Grüner’s Chablis, then the Burgenland is its Côte d’Or. These are profoundly complex, totally unique whites that the wider wine world hasn’t yet caught onto. I only wish I’d had something so versatile and broadly appealing back when I was working restaurant floors! And still, these incredible wines go virtually unrecognized. That’s to our benefit—this bottle offers quality and sheer deliciousness that competes with its Danube cousins costing twice as much!

Hannes Schuster is a quiet force of nature on the Austrian wine scene. In 2007, he took over the family winery, named for his mother Rosi, and has since turned it into one of the top two or three estates in the region. After his father passed, Roland Velich of Weingut Moric—a SommSelect mainstay—took Hannes under his wing and taught him how to elevate the once-ignored Blaufränkisch grape to world-class status. Like Roland, Hannes works exclusively with native varieties, only adds a touch of sulfur to his wines, and farms organically. Hannes has received endless accolades from the German-speaking wine press, including the highest rating ever for a Blaufränkisch, but you’d never know it. He speaks little and even then, only in short, declarative sentences that barely hint at the care and consideration he takes in the vineyard and winery.

The Burgenland region, on Austria’s border with Hungary, has little in common with the craggy, steep terraces of the country’s more famous appellations. It’s frankly more Hungarian than Austrian, as it's part of a broad, warm central European lowland area known as the Pannonian Basin. Here, loamy soils and warmer temperatures make for riper wines that the best producers imbue with every bit of finesse you’d expect from points farther west. Blaufränkisch is the current star in Burgenland, but I suspect that soon sommeliers and Austrian wine geeks will be clamoring for their Grüner-based whites just as much. Simultaneously fruit-driven, mineral, and fresh—it’s a blessing that a bottle like this can go for under $30. 

Served at 45-50 degrees in all-purpose stems, Rosi Schuster’s 2019 “Aus Den Dorfen” Grüner Veltliner pours a pale yellow with flecks of silver and green. The nose isn’t flashy, but it is certainly confident and intricate: the combination of ripe orchard fruits like yellow apple and quince with faint white stone fruit calls Burgundy to mind. But there’s a gentle herbaceousness here too—some chervil and baby arugula—and a soft leesy note running through a vein of serious salty minerality that highlights Grüner’s individual charm. The palate is medium-bodied, fresh, and ripe with beautifully integrated acidity. Everything here is perfectly in place: “balance” and “complete” are two words that kept coming to mind. A wine like this is a dream at the table: it’ll work with everything from salads to sushi to a roast chicken. But serve it up alongside some pork schnitzel with dill sauce and you’ll swear you were right there in Burgenland!