We gathered every example of Australian grüner veltliner that we could find and set our expert panel the task of finding the wines that compelled the most. All wines were tasted blind, and each panellist named their top six wines. Below are the wines that made the panellists’ top-six selections from the tasting.
Our panel: Gill Sykes, freelance wine consultant and educator; Conor Braisier, winemaker, Mt. Bera Heritage Estate; Callie Poole, head sommelier, Reine & La Rue; Andrew Wyse, founder, Cardwell Cellars; Madeleine Horrigan, wine educator and MW student; Tony Layton, business manager (Regional Collection and St. Huberts cellar door), Treasury Wine Estates; Hayley Farquar, wine merchant, City Wine Shop and The European.
This wine appeared in the top six wines of the day for Layton, Sykes, and Poole. Layton described how “this wine jumps out of the glass with fresh aromatics – notes of lemon sherbet and lime sorbet, white jasmine florals, a touch of white pepper, and some lovely baking spices. On the palate, a lick of saline and some zippy acidity wrap up the soft, fleshy fruit profile and tie things up into a tight little package. A young, salivating wine of remarkable freshness – stainless-steel ferment, I’m guessing. Bring on a salty sardine or Vietnamese spring roll!” Sykes noted “lovely talc-y, powder-puff aromas, alongside sea spray over pebbles. Textbook grüner veltliner on the palate with gorgeous purity of fruit – think pear and apple concentrate with a backbone of grapefruit pith – silky texture, and zippy acidity, all finished off with a trademark pinch of spicy pepper.” Poole found “green apple blossom gives this wine an aromatic crunchiness, coupled with white snow pea, celeriac, lemon peel, and an elderflower top note. It feels very riesling-esque on the palate – all about acidity, purity, and aromatics. Very pretty and very precise – it feels steely, without that cotton-bud texture you often see in grüner veltliner.”
This wine made the top six wines of the tasting for Farquar, Brasier, and Poole. Farquar noted “long lingering fruit on display here – aromatic, with intense concentration in the glass. This wine show impressive depth – herbaceous notes of parsley, orchard fruits of fleshy green apples and pears, alongside some honeydew melon, as well as some brioche characters that balance the high and sharp acid line. This is the kind of grüner veltliner that would work very well as a food wine – but also one that has enough complexity to be enjoyed as a standalone beverage.” Brasier described “a balanced wine of texture and brightness, with honey nougat and green tea notes, alongside an ethereal floral edge. The palate offers pine-lime Splice with a toasted pinenut edge and zippy acidity – it’s a wine that promises one thing with its richer nose and delivers something a little different with its fresher palate.” Poole found “great concentration on display here – notes of turnip, lemongrass, turmeric, and ginger nut biscuit. The wine feels quite rocky on the palate, with a granite or ironstone minerality that adds depth. Despite its evident tension and prominent minerality, it’s actually very pleasant to drink.”
Poole and Layton included this wine in their top six selections from the tasting. Poole noted “I went back to the nose multiple times here – it’s quite exotic and spicy, showing sesame oil, burnt butter, earthy turnips, tarragon, pear seeds, and green Granny Smith apple. It almost feels like there were some botrytised grapes in the ferment – but more for texture and weight rather than sweetness. Texturally, it’s very rich and oily on the palate – specifically a macadamia oil texture – and it feels quite ripe, as though it were modelled on a Smaragd example of Austrian grüner veltliner. As such, the alcohol feels somewhat elevated here – but I’m actually loving this wine, as the persistent acidity brings everything into balance.” Layton described “pale and delicate in the glass, with classic aromatic notes of white flowers, jasmine, peppermint tea, green tea, and chamomile. This is all backed up with some nice chalky phenolics, which give some weight to the wine and add a dry, slightly bitter finish. This is a bit more of a serious, ‘grown-up’ example of the variety, so it would match many foods – but alongside a dish of curried mussels or similar it would be sublime.”
This wine appeared in the top six wines on the day for Horrigan, Sykes, and Wyse. Horrigan described “lemon curd, spicy green pear and firm yellow nectarine notes meet fragrant white pepper and frangipane – like a tantalising pastry in a glass. Bright fruit is cut through by tangy hits of sour cream and a distinctive sea-breeze salinity. The palate is a masterclass in freshness, built around a poised yet mouth-puckering acidity that makes you sit up and pay attention. This is grüner veltliner with personality and verve – alive in the glass, and hard not to enjoy.” Sykes noted “ultra lively citrus aromas – my mouth was watering before I’d even tasted this wine! It shows a smooth silky palate texture, with real weight and depth of flavour: classic grüner veltliner characteristics of lemon, grapefruit pith, and slightly underripe pear, coupled with dill and peppercorn.” Wyse found it “poised and balanced, this wine’s acidity confidently opens the door – then it glides with ease into flavours of lime blossom and wildflowers. Despite its subtlety, the wine is highly detailed, with much to reveal over time.”
Farquar and Layton both selected this wine among their top six from the blind tasting. Farquar described “pretty and lifted, but not delicate, this wine shows high fruit concentration and a smooth, warming line of acidity, with notes of red apples, yellow pears, lemon juice, and a green note of apple leaf. The fruit is ripe without being cloying, balanced by the acidity and body. A refreshing apéritif wine when served cold – but also one that you can linger over, as it stays in balance as it warms up and opening up in the glass.” Layton noted “pale straw in colour, and quite classic grüner veltliner on the nose, showing honeysuckle, orange blossom, jasmine, and honeyed notes. Yellow fruits dominate the palate, with kiwifruit, star fruit, and ripe Chinese white pear opening to a slightly broader mouthfeel. Texture and width add some interest and shape to this wine.”
Horrigan and Farquar both selected this wine among their top six picks. Horrigan noted “the nose alone is worth the price of admission – captivating in its complexity and intensity. Layers of grilled pineapple and baked peach are seamlessly interwoven with hints of honey, beeswax and orange marmalade. The palate delivers concentration and texture, with piercing acidity that slices right through the richness. A bitter almond note on the finish beautifully completes the wine’s savoury throughline – proof that Australian grüner veltliner can go the complex, age-worthy route. A great bottle to impress the wine lovers in your life, preferably alongside something rich like roasted chicken with herb butter.” Farquar described “on the nose, this wine shows a striking amount of development, leading with unusual and intense notes of cream, Greek yoghurt, and mushroom. Despite its obvious maturity, the palate still retains some fresh fruit characters of green apple and lemon juice. There’s a high concentration of flavours in the glass here – this is a that wine should be enjoyed with food, as it’s on the distinctly savoury end of the grüner veltliner spectrum.”
Wyse and Poole included this wine in their top six wines from the blind tasting. Wyse described “this is classic grüner veltliner in its most archetypal form – in fact, I’m tempted to compare this to Austrian examples, such is its poise, precision, and virtuosity. Lime juice and lemongrass open the bouquet, followed by green apple flesh, meadow hay, and basil through the mid-palate. It finishes with pops of refreshing kumquat alongside licks of spicy green ginger and crunchy passionfruit seeds, followed by a surge of saline river stone notes and salty apricot character. This wine is effortlessly versatile, and would suit anything from roast chicken or barbecued sausages to Thai curry or char kway teow – a catch-all for the dinner table or the backyard.” Poole noted “aromas of cream cheese, burnt caramel, Nashi pear, and hay bail – plus a note of vanilla bean meets cashew nut that suggests the wine has seen a lick of new oak. It’s very creamy on the palate, yet still tastes quite youthful. The creamy texture of the wine suggests at least some partial malolactic conversion – it has this weightiness that gives a beautiful cross-hatch effect in the centre of the palate. It feels like a grüner veltliner that’s been made like a chardonnay.”
This wine made the top six selections for both Brasier and Wyse. Brasier described “a wine of subtlety and delicate intrigue. The aromatics are complex yet subdued – jasmine flowers and wild thyme with a salty edge reminiscent of a well-made Martini. This nuance continues on the palate with pithy lemon flesh and Thai lime zest notes leading to a finish that is bright and carrying – one that leaves you salivating and wanting another sip. A bottle of this, a nice sunny day, and some cold seafood are the stuff of instant memories.” Wyse noted “the nose is strikingly saline – a margarita comparison is difficult to avoid! The aromas are led by lime and agave, followed by powdered ginger, passionfruit, and orange blossom. There is some welcome ripeness on the palate, well balanced by fresh acidity. This combination of saltiness, richness, and aromatic lift makes this wine a natural partner for a rich korma, a yoghurt-laden fish dish, or chicken skewers marinated in chilli.”
Horrigan and Farquar both chose this wine for their top six wines of the tasting. Horrigan described “white peach and Beurre Bosc pear lead on the nose, intermingled with grüner veltliner’s signature white pepper spice and a fragrant herb note similar to fresh marjoram. Lees work adds a lovely salty note to the aromatics. The palate shifts gears slightly – more textured and mouth-filling than the nose might suggest, showing baked yellow peach, puff pastry, and a sprinkle of flaky sea salt. This is the kind of wine that would work equally well at a casual Sunday lunch or a more thoughtful dinner – versatile enough to cover everything from oysters to roast pork.” Farquar noted “distinctly apple-driven on the nose, showing a medley of assorted apple colours: green, yellow and red. The wine shows a strong acid line, in a lemon citrus style, but remains light and flirtatious on the palate. This is an easy-drinking grüner veltliner with enough complexity to be interesting as a standalone beverage – a fantastic option for summer drinking on a hot day.”
Sykes and Layton selected this wine among their top six wines on the day. Sykes described “a delicate, gossamer grüner veltliner. Fresh and refined, with soft lemon and snow pea flavours, hints of pepper and fresh herb notes, and a subtle saline character in the background. Refreshing acidity and flinty notes are woven together in a beautifully refined drop. Makes a nice change from big flashy wines.” Layton noted “pale green tinge in the glass, bright and light on the nose – aromatic and lifted, showing green apple, white pepper, lavender, and rosemary. The palate opens with gentle acidity flowing into some roundness. It’s quite simple – but the simple things in life are often good, right? No food required with this easy-drinking and refreshing wine – best consumed just as a sundowner with friends.”
Wyse and Horrigan both selected this wine among their top six wines of the day. Wyse described “galangal and lime leaf dominate at first look. On the palate, the fruit is subtle – Nashi pear and starfruit layered beneath crispy, rocky minerality and herbal notes of pressed tarragon, salvia, and lemon balm. Delicate contours frame an impressive palate length – this is a wine that unwinds very slowly and carefully, revealing layers of wild herbs and flowers. A good candidate to pair with Vietnamese spring rolls with prawn or crab.” Horrigan noted “a slightly more structured take on the variety – one that leans into texture and aromatics. On the nose, delicate notes of pear blossom and musk intermingle with white pepper, wafting over a backdrop of juicy orchard fruit. The palate is dry and mouth-filling, with a gentle phenolic grip that gives the wine texture, while the leaner palate weight and crisp acidity keep everything lifted. An intriguing, contemplative wine for when you’re in the mood to explore something a bit different.”
This wine appeared in the top six picks for both Wyse and Sykes. Wyse described “the palate opens with a volley of gentian and yuzu, tactile and incisive, before broadening gradually into acacia, white tea, tarragon, and wild thyme, all carried by a clean and persistent line of acidity. The finish is long, with a silky texture rich in detail and ornamentation. Try with natural scallops or oysters on the half-shell – no garnishes necessary.” Sykes noted “fresh lemon zest with nettle and gherkin aromas. A classic grüner veltliner – juicy and concentrated with a grapefruit tang, plenty of lemon and green apple notes, and a tempering touch of salinity. This is a crisp, lively, and refreshing wine – I really like the subtle vegetative notes of cucumber and celery backed up by citrus and spice here.”
Farquar and Brasier included this wine in their top six wines from the tasting. Farquar described “gold in the glass, this wine deftly balances freshness and complexity. Vibrant acidity balances a palate of riper fruit flavours that lean into yellow plum and lychee territory. It’s fruity without being cloying, given freshness by its distinct saline character and layered complexity from greener notes of blossom leaf and apple blossom. The acidity is striking, but feels integrated – creating a supple, refreshing, and remarkably easy-to-drink wine without hard lines.” Brasier noted “more in the aperitif-style ‘crisp and clean’ mould than some of my other top wines, but showing plenty of flavour depth: salty sea spray, wild fennel, and citrus blossom. The palate has a pleasantly saline lemonade Hydrolyte quality to it that is as refreshing as it is interesting. A wine of freshness and intensity that calls for oysters and ponzu.”
Horrigan chose this wine for her top six selections from the blind tasting, describing “the nose of this wine is all toasty elegance – grilled almonds, fresh toast and wood char dancing with yellow apple and Meyer lemon. The palate is simultaneously generous and fresh, driven by electric acidity that somehow still feels generous and warming, while echoing the nose with rich flavours of lemon balm, yellow nectarine, roasted nuts and beeswax. The long finish lingers with smoky minerality and a touch of lanolin. This is the kind of wine that makes you want to slow down and actually savour it. Sure, it’s not textbook grüner veltliner– but honestly, who cares when it drinks this well? Pair it with grilled asparagus, toasted nuts and a good squeeze of lemon – then watch it work its magic.”
Sykes selected this wine among her top six wines of the day, noting “this wine piqued my interest with its notes of grapefruit zest and a hint of marzipan on the nose. The palate is quite dense and luxurious – elderflower, green apples and pears, livened by zesty, crisp acidity. Notes of almond kernel, brazil nut and bean curd peeking out from the background, coupled with grüner veltliner’s distinctive white pepper finish, make this a compelling wine – perfect to create a talking point at your next dinner party, or simply to enjoy with lobster or crayfish.”
Brasier chose this wine for his top six picks, describing “bright, clean and crisp, with a generosity of fruit character – honeyed blossom and star jasmine, alongside something lightly tropical and reminiscent of feijoa, or maybe underripe kiwifruit. The wine slips along the palate with ease and grace – there’s bright acidity without sharpness, and a salinity on the finish that is very moreish. A wine that could go with most foods, but needs none, perfect for sharing on sunny afternoons with good friends – although it would be even better if there were also good snacks, particularly of the cured fish variety.”
Layton included this wine in his top six wines from the blind tasting, noting “an altogether different example of grüner veltliner, whose richness suggests that it might be from a warmer climate or site – but it shows oodles of class and weight. More developed in colour, with warmer, richer aromas of freshly baked apple pie alongside cinnamon, baking spices and a touch of marzipan notes, On the palate, there’s evidence of maybe some lees work or malolactic conversion to give the wine that creamier, richer style. Grippy phenolics and a short, sharp acid line give this wine plenty of palate weight and a nicely dry finish. I love this as a stylistic departure from the dominance of ‘pretty and pure’ examples – sometimes it’s good to be different.”
Wyse selected this wine among his top six selections from the tasting, describing “a refined bouquet of peach blossom, lime zest, and elderflower leads into a tart, citrus-driven palate, with faint notes of calamansi, honeydew melon, and cedar playing a supporting role. Orange blossom notes frame a mid-palate that reflects floral sweetness, giving the wine a delicate, ethereal quality. This is a splendid expression of grüner veltliner – one where wildflowers and sage surface on the finish, and classic ginger spice and a dash of mace add definition, underscoring the spicy nature of this iteration on the variety. It demands pairing with pork gyoza or sashimi.”
Poole included this wine in her top six picks from the tasting, noting “opens with aromas of burnt orange peel, kumquat, white pepper, cut grass, lemon pith, lemon verbena, and saltbush. There’s a hint of bitterness on the palate, but overall this wine shows quite a lovely length and represents its fruit beautifully. I love the oiliness of this wine and its waxy texture – almost reminiscent of coconut oil or coconut husk – and its super-sultry acid line as well. The variety’s classic white pepper note cuts through the palate. It reminds me very much of the original Austrian grüner veltliners that I fell in love with. This would be delightful to cut through and compliment a rich, French-inspired dish of grilled scallops seasoned with hollandaise and vadouvan spice mix.”
Layton chose this wine for his top six wines from the blind tasting, describing “lovely and light in the glass – all crunchy green apple and salty shelled pistachios mixed with a fresh lime sorbet. There’s a grassy, slightly herbaceous edge to the palate, then bang – acidity for days! The crunchy fruit theme continues with ripe gooseberry, yet the finish is soft with some surprising roundness considering all the pleasantly green flavour notes. I would pair this with a lovely asparagus tart on a summer day – brilliant lunchtime drinking!”
Sykes and Horrigan included this wine in their top six wines on the day. Sykes described “not your typical grüner veltliner, but a delicious drink nonetheless. A tutti-frutti and peach melba nose leads to a luscious, creamy palate of ripe exotic fruits – think quince and custard apple with vanilla bean. A streak of cutting acidity keeps the wine balanced. Big on flavour, with a seemingly endless finish.” Horrigan noted “ripe and unabashedly generous with hallmark aromatics – this is grüner turned up a notch. The nose delivers golden delicious apple, yellow peach and apricot with cream, while pops of saltiness and a subtle asparagus note tie it to its variety. Lush fruit dominates the palate – rich and ripe, but never lazy, thanks to the driving acidity that brings proper tang and vibrancy. This is compelling evidence that Australian grüner veltliner can do the fuller, more exuberant style while keeping that essential acidic backbone. A wine of big flavours and big personality.”
Poole selected this wine among her top six picks from the tasting, describing how it “has that really lovely crème fraîche thing going on, alongside macadamia nut shell, bruised yellow apple, Nashi pear, and lemon verbena. Definitely some winemaking happening here – there’s a lick of new oak that makes it feel and taste quite expensive. Fortunately, the wine lends itself well to its beautiful, creamy texture – it’s really very elegant and chardonnay-like. There’s a nuttiness here that indicates a little bit of age as well. This is the kind of wine that warrants a conversation about varietal typicity and/or stereotypes versus what’s actually in the glass – and the surprise and delight that fits the space between. I thought it tasted and felt almost Burgundian in its own way on the day – so I kept revisiting, and found something different each time.”
Brasier chose this wine for his top six selections, noting “a wine showing a balance of ripe fruit and winemaking nuance, this leaps out of the glass with notes of honey-roasted cashews and toasted meringue, while delicate citrus blossom and waxed lemon skin undertones layer in complexity. The palate delivers yellow nectarines and Meyer lemon, with a touch of dried thyme to keep it interesting. The acid line balances this wine well – it’s got enough oomph to refresh, without being biting. This is the kind of wine that could accompany everything from seafood starters roast pork mains – I can even see this bringing brightness to heavy desserts.”
This wine appeared in the top six wines from the blind tasting for Brasier and Farquar. Brasier described “honeysuckle and toasted granola aromatics intrigue and excite straight out of the glass, followed by white tea leaves and beeswax. The wine promptly delivers ample fruits on tasting, showing recognisable and distinct notes of baked pear, allspice, clove and lemon curd. It finishes with a smoother, more rounded finish – not with the zip and charge of other examples. Perfect for French bistro seafood dishes – think lobster Thermidor or scallop gratin.” Farquar noted “an interesting addition to the line-up, unlike most other grüner veltliners I have come across before thanks to its distinct aroma of quince paste and its unusual appearance – slightly cloudy and green, reminiscent of cloudy apple juice. It smells like a lolly shop, but is surprisingly structured and creamy on the palate. Given its distinct quince paste flavours, I can’t help but imagine how good this would be with a cheese plate – especially if it contains some Manchego!”
Grüner veltliner is Austria’s definitive white variety – and definitively Austrian. It’s also something of a latecomer as far as grape varieties go, with the first records of its existence dating back to the 1700s. While the ‘veltliner’ part of the name, which literally translates to ‘green grape from Veltlin’, likely refers to the Italian Alpine wine region of Valtellina, genetic analysis firmly suggests an Austrian origin. Grüner veltliner’s parents are the ancient variety savagnin and an obscure variety – originally known from a single extant vine discovered in the Austrian village of Sankt Georgen am Leithagebirge – that is now officially known as mater veltlinis, literally ‘mother of veltliner’. The savagnin connection makes it either a half-sibling or grandchild of pinot noir, therefore also a distant relative of chardonnay. Somewhat ironically, neither grüner veltliner nor mater veltlinis are at all related to the family of other Austrian varieties that have the word ‘veltliner’ in their name, such as roter veltliner or frühroter veltliner.
Austrian authorities designated that single original mater veltlinis vine a legally protected national monument after it was attacked by vandals in 2011 – something that speaks volumes about the importance of grüner veltliner to Austrians. According to the most recent Austrian statistics (2024), grüner veltliner is the most widely planted variety in the country, accounting for just over 32% of its national vineyard area. For context, that’s a remarkably similar figure to the proportion of Australia’s vineyard area dedicated to shiraz (29.5% at the most recent vineyard census in 2015). And just like Australia’s love affair with shiraz – which only really started to bloom in the late 1950s – the Austrian love affair with grüner likewise only commenced in the middle of the twentieth century, thanks to the forces of modernisation.
By the middle of the 1800s, grüner was widespread throughout the Weinviertel region of Austria – a broad swathe of land to the north of Vienna that borders onto Czechia and Slovakia. At this time it was cultivated as a workhorse grape variety, thanks to its relatively high yields, and it swiftly displaced the then-dominant white variety gouais blanc – now an extremely rare variety best known as one of the parents of chardonnay. (Grüner’s rapid ascendance in the Weinviertel region is perhaps not surprising, given that the earliest known written record of gouais blanc, from 1539, says that its large berries “are called shit grapes by some”.) Those same high yields and its cheerfully agnostic approach to soil profiles – it’s happy to grow in just about any type of dirt, including nutrient-poor soils, as long as the weather remains relatively cool – saw it spread not only to other Austrian regions, but also across current international borders to find further homes in Slovakia, Hungary, Czechia, Slovenia, and the Alpine north of Italy. The variety thrived in these cooler, continental pockets of central Europe, although even as it gained popularity, it was rarely consumed by itself – instead, it was largely planted with other varieties in mixed vineyards (a tradition that lives on in the Viennese stye of wine known as gemischter satz, literally ‘mixed set’).
It would take the work of Austrian viticulturist Dr. Laurenz ‘Lenz’ Moser III to not only make grüner veltliner Austria’s national variety, but also to bring the Austrian wine industry into the modern era. Inspired by an American trellising system he had discovered while translating an English-language viticultural text into German, in 1928 Moser began experimenting with a new trellising technique, which he called Hochkultur (‘high culture’), at his family’s estate in Rohrendorf bei Krems. Moser’s timing was fortuitous – phylloxera had arrived in Austria in 1872, and by the 1930s vast swathes of Austria’s vineyards had to be replanted on American rootstocks. This wholesale replanting – which was interrupted by World War II, but recommenced in earnest afterwards – allowed for experimentation not only with new trellising techniques, but also with other modern developments such as planting vineyards in neat rows, ready to be mechanised, and planting vineyards to single grape varieties. Moser’s Hochkultur system not only raised the height of the vine trunks and spread out the rows – better ventilating the fruiting area, which reduced disease pressure, and making it easier to use machine harvesters – but also reduced planting densities, which made replanting significantly cheaper. Little wonder, then, that Moser’s trellising system became commonplace throughout Austria as it rebuilt its national vineyards after the dual horrors of phylloxera and World War II.
“Grüner veltliner was not on labels at the time – it was the cheap stuff, very low on the end of the scale.”
Moser was also an avid proponent of grüner veltliner, whose high yields suited the low planting densities required by his Hochkultur system. His family winery, now known as Weinkelleri Lenz Moser, gave a boost to the variety’s reputation within Austria when Moser’s grandson, Lenz Moser V, entered the business after having done work experience at Robert Mondavi’s winery in California’s Napa Valley. “He was into this varietal thing … Bob Mondavi had this great idea of [labelling by] varietals – his cabernet sauvignons, merlots, sauvignon blancs, and so on,” Moser V said in a 2022 podcast interview with wine journalist Tim Atkin MW. “When you think of the mid-’80s in Austria, there was only brands like Alter Knabe” – a popular red blend made by Weinkellerei Lenz Moser – “or village names, like Langenlois.” Grüner veltliner was by this stage widely grown, but, as Moser V recounts, “was not on labels at the time … it was the cheap stuff, very low on the end of the scale”. Placing the name of the variety on the label was a radical move at the time – especially given that much of Austria’s wine industry was calibrated around the production of said ‘cheap stuff’, vast quantities of which flowed across the border to West Germany to help sate that country’s post-World War II demand for off-dry and semi-sweet wines. But not long after Moser V started to place the words ‘grüner veltliner’ on wine labels, Austria went through a scandal that would see the entire country’s wine industry radically switch its focus towards both dryness and quality.
The diethylene glycol scandal of 1985 remains the most famous example of wine adulteration/contamination in history – and its impact on Austrian wine cannot be understated. The seeds for this crisis were sown by contracts that Austrian bulk wine producers had signed with West German supermarkets and retailers in the 1970s, which dictated not only the quantities of wine to be provided, but also their sweetness according to Germany’s convoluted Prädikatswein system. A string of difficult vintages in the early 1980s – where Austria’s grapes couldn’t achieve the level of ripeness required to make sweeter styles – saw unscrupulous producers searching for ways to meet turn their thin, sour wines into wines that would meet their contracts. Lead by a wine chemist named Otto Nadrasky, they settled on diethylene glycol – a toxic chemical that is sometimes found in antifreeze – to give their wines not only sweetness but also the extra body and richness that experienced tasters would expect. Meanwhile, the West German authorities were aware, from prior experience with illegally sweetened Italian imports, that the country’s vinous sweet tooth made it vulnerable to illicit wine adulteration, and had therefore set up random spot testing of wines. A bottle of 1983 vintage Auslese wine from the Austrian village of Rust, purchased in July 1985 from a supermarket in the West German city of Stuttgart, was found to contain diethylene glycol, which lead to testing of other Austrian wine. The results hit the international press, and, for Austrian wine producers, all hell broke loose.
The scandal itself contains some gripping details. Austria’s wine authorities were visited seven months before the scandal broke by a mysterious man with a German accent who placed a bottle of diethylene glycol on the counter and simply said, “This is what the Austrian wine counterfeiting scene uses”. The Austrian tax authorities sounded the alarm internally when a winegrower claimed a conspicuously large quantity of antifreeze as a business expense, despite owning only one small tractor. Austria’s Agriculture Minister, Günter Haiden, had informed the courts and authorities of each of Austria’s provinces about the potential misuse of diethylene glycol in April 1985, and had passed the same information on to West German authorities in May, later causing an international spat regarding who knew what and when. And when an Austrian producer named Anton Schmied tried to hide the evidence by dumping 4000 gallons of his red wine into the sewerage system, the microorganisms that treated the waste were killed off and dead trout started to appear in the local streams. Fortunately, the practice was detected before it could claim any human victims – although one particular wine, a 1981 Welschriesling Beerenauslese from Austria’s Bergenland, was found to contain enough diethylene glycol to kill a person if a bottle were to be consumed in a single sitting. With so much juicy material to be reported on, the international press had a field day with the story – and Austria’s wine exports collapsed to practically nil overnight. Indeed, the scandal was so widely publicised that, five years after it first broke, it became the basis for an entire episode of the first season of The Simpsons – and plenty of wine consumers still remain suspicious of Austrian wines to this day.
“I could not imagine it would be anything other than a walkover for Chardonnay in general and white burgundy in particular. After the tasting I could hardly believe the results.”
With their wine industry in tatters, Austrians had little choice but to embark on an ambitious plan for the country’s vinous rebirth – one focused on quality and purity. Within a remarkably short amount of time – and via concerted collaboration between government agencies, grower groups, and individual producers – Austrian wine had received a serious glow-up. In particular, the Vinea Wachau growers’ collective deserves credit for self-imposed quality guidelines – ironically drafted before the diethylene glycol scandal – that went above and beyond the already-stringent legal minimums. This set the stage for Austrian wines in general, and grüner veltliner in particular, to enter the global wine world’s consciousness in the late ’90s and early 2000s, culminating in a now-famous 2002 tasting that pitted the best of white Burgundy against the cream of the grüner veltliner crop (modelled on the infamous ‘Judgement of Paris’ tasting of 1976 that saw California cabernets and chardonnays best their French counterparts, horrifying the mostly-French judging panel). A suitable panel of gun tasters was in attendance – including the esteemed Jancis Robinson, who says of it, “I could not imagine it would be anything other than a walkover for Chardonnay in general and white burgundy in particular. After the tasting I could hardly believe the results”. As always seems to happen in these tastings, the underdog won, the French were horrified once more – and grüner veltliner had finally arrived on the world stage.
That 2002 tasting proved to be decisive for grüner’s future in this country. “We got a visit in ’02 from Jancis Robinson,” says Chris Carpenter of Canberra District producer Lark Hill. “She came to Lark Hill and had a look at the vineyard, and basically turned to me and said, ‘You should be growing grüner veltliner’. I’d never really even heard of it before – I certainly hadn’t drunk any. That set me on the path.” As it happened, Carpenter had been looking for an alternative white variety to grow, beyond the chardonnay and riesling that his parents had planted. “The ’90s were the era of ‘anything but chardonnay’, and riesling was also kind of on the out,” he says. “[My parents] were kind of fighting against the tide in that their passion for grape growing was inspired by Burgundy and German riesling, so they were sort of making those two white varieties in the face of a market that was increasingly looking for sauvignon blanc and other alternatives. So we had the idea that we needed to pick an alternate white up that would have a bit more engagement with people.” Having set his mind to investigating the possibilities of grüner veltliner for this job, he swiftly found that, in his words, “There was no commercially propagated grüner in Australia, and a very limited amount of grüner available to buy as wine that was coming into Australia at that point. By the end of ’04, I’d pretty much given up. Then at the beginning of 2005, I got a phone call from the late Graham Wiltshire, who was retiring from his position at University of Tassie and had to disband his nursery collection at the university. And he had all sorts of weird things” – including two grüner veltliner vines.
Cuttings from those vines ended up becoming the source of Lark Hill’s estate grüner veltliner plantings, which went into the ground in 2005. The fact that the vines were sourced from Wiltshire’s experimental nursery collection means that their provenance was somewhat uncertain: “I don’t have a lot of information about where those vines came into Australia or when,” Carpenter says. “I think the best we can work out is they probably came into Tassie in the ’60s and are probably not very genetically different from what’s been brought in by the Adelaide Hills movement and forms the majority of Australian grüner clonal material.” There was also the issue of potential viral infection: “There was a concern that there might be leafroll virus in in that nursery,” Carpenter says. “So part of the conditions of that release was that we were welcome to propagate it ourselves within our own holdings, at our own risk, but we were not able to let that material leave our vineyard or propagate it for other people.” As Carpenter puts it, that caveat “really put the brakes on giving grüner a home in Canberra, outside of our vineyards” – even though the now-mature vines have yet to show any symptoms of leafroll disease.
“You can make it into an aromatic, light, bright, pretty, fresh thing – or you can get it much riper and really engage with the more savoury, spicier, full-bodied style.”
After the vines were sourced and propagated came the task of figuring out how exactly to make wine from them. “We picked about twenty or thirty kilos of fruit in 2008, and kind of stood around the picking buckets and tasted it and went, ‘Oh, that’s really interesting – very much not riesling-ish, very much not sauvignon blanc–ish’,” Carpenter says – a counter-intuitive observation, given that wines made from grüner veltliner are often compared to wines from those varieties when engaging with consumers. He argues that while riesling and sauvignon blanc usually lose their varietal character quickly as they approach ripeness – making picking times a knife-edge proposition – grüner builds character as it ripens: “That gives it a huge flexibility. You can make it into an aromatic, light, bright, pretty, fresh thing – or you can get it much riper and really engage with the more savoury, spicier, full-bodied style.” The style of Lark Hill’s grüner veltliner, which was first made with the 2009 vintage, was very much informed by the experience of tasting the fruit the previous year – as well as the limited yields of the young vines. “In ’09, I had just enough juice to fill a neutral-oak barrique – the smallest fermentation vessel I had, at 200 litres,” Carpenter says. “That kind of educated how it was made. It was picked riper to try and get really good varietal definition in the fruit characters, fermented on lees in a barrique – so no temperature control – with indigenous yeast. And that meant the wine was more savoury, more textural – more about a full-bodied, intense, deliberate style. Maybe at the expense of not seeing that bright, aromatic, fresh, fruit-driven wine initially – but I was trying not to make a sauvignon blanc clone, and trying not to make something that people would think of as a different version of riesling.”
While Chris Carpenter was planting those first precious grüner veltliner cuttings in the Canberra District, viticulturist and winemaker Larry Jacobs of Hahndorf Hill was sowing the seeds for the Adelaide Hills region to emerge as Australia’s pre-eminent destination for the variety. “We bought a piece of extra land around about 2005 from our neighbour, and we knew we wanted to plant a white variety there, but we wanted something that was really suited to the conditions of our terroir quite specifically,” he says. “Wherever you go in the world – whether it’s in Australia, New Zealand, or whatever – everyone says, ‘Yeah, we make fantastic chardonnay or sauvignon blanc’ in every region. There’s nothing really specific. So we wanted to something that was really going to be suited for the Adelaide Hills.” This entailed Jacobs and Hahndorf Hill co-owner Marc Dobson tasting a wide array of ‘alternative variety’ wines from around the world – “And the one that I was smitten by virtually instantly was grüner. I’d never tried it before, and I thought it was just bloody amazing,” Jacobs says. He undertook a research trip to Austria, where he spoke to leading grüner veltliner makers. “They were all saying the most important thing for quality grüner veltliner is diurnal variation, which they have there. And I thought, ‘Well, that’s one of the features of the terroir that we have here’.”
As all of the extant cuttings of the variety were in Carpenter’s hands in Lark Hill, and subject to the caveat that they might be virus-affected, Jacobs had to take matters into his own hands. “I just started importing my stuff myself,” he said. “I contacted people in Austria and managed to import three different clones.” Australia’s biosecurity processes were rough on the vines – “They steam-clean them and really bash them around – sometimes the plant material doesn’t survive, but that batch did survive,” Jacobs says – but they were eventually released to him after years of quarantine and went into the ground in 2008. Given that the variety was chosen not only for its quality but also for its innate suitability to the Adelaide Hills, it makes sense that Jacobs then went on to share cuttings from that initial importation as widely as possible within the region. “Prue Henschke’s Adelaide Hills Vine Improvement Group took control of the clonal material,” he says. “Our aim was to try and promote it as much as we could in the Adelaide Hills, and then beyond into the rest of the country. We then started a group in Adelaide Hills called the Grüner Growers Group. The whole purpose was not only to establish various styles – and to keep ourselves informed and share information – but also to promote the variety to to get it onto the tables of Australians.”
“The one that I was smitten by virtually instantly was grüner. I’d never tried it before, and I thought it was just bloody amazing.”
The question of establishing what grüner veltliner should taste like in Australia eventually lead Hahndorf Hill to create a total of four separate grüner veltliner cuvées – spanning the gamut from the light, fresh and aromatic through to a more serious reserve wine, and even a luscious dessert style they dubbed ‘Green Angel’. “We started off with ‘Gru’ in 2010, which was in the classic style,” says Jacobs – by which he means a relatively crisp, clean and aromatic expression. “In those days, even in Austria, the main differentiation was between classic and reserve – obviously now the classification systems have expanded hugely over the years.” Jacobs notes that the classic style isn’t as easy to pin down as many might think: “Within the classic style there’s huge variation between wines – some are really easy and fresh and crisp and light, but then there are more serious classic styles, which have greater depth.” Assisted by AWRI winemaker Gemma West, Jacobs started by dialling in how to make a classic example with a bit more depth and texture than usual. Then, as more fruit became available, and as more Australian wine drinkers cottoned on to the variety, Jacobs says “we saw an opportunity to split the classic style into the ‘Gru’ and the ‘White Mischief’. The ‘White Mischief’ was the more aromatic style, and the ‘Gru’ was more complex and savoury – but still not touching yet on the reserve style, which is a totally different ball game again.” While Jacobs is no longer involved in the day-to-day operations of Hanhdorf Hill, having recently sold the property to Wirra Wirra, the label still produces all four styles under the direction of current winemaker Kelly Wellington – proof that Australian grüner veltliner remains capable of delicious diversity.
The collaborative growth of Adelaide Hills grüner veltliner mirrors the deliberate and concerted efforts of Austria’s own wine industry to recover after the diethylene glycol scandal. “When I started off, I always said, ‘If I died, and I was buried, and on my gravestone it said that grüner veltliner is now established in the Hills, I would be a happy corpse’,” Larry Jacobs says. “And I think that’s just what happened.” The Adelaide Hills now operates as the motor for Australian grüner veltliner – in fact, it grows more vines than all the other regions in the southern hemisphere combined, including New Zealand and South Africa – and includes an exciting reset of makers and growers who produce multiple styles from different sites, such as Crft, Geoff Hardy, and Mt. Bera Heritage Estate. In chilly Tasmania, the variety has found an outpost via vigneron Joe Holyman of Stoney Rise, whose grüner veltliner vineyard was planted from cuttings sourced from the same Wiltshire collection as Lark Hill, as well as being grown by Linda Dell of Sinapius. With more material becoming available to plant, other producers from Canberra and the neighbouring Tumbarumba and Hilltops districts have begun to play with the variety. And the overall quality of Australia’s grüner veltliner is remarkable when you consider that it’s relatively young, as grape varieties go, and that the Austrian originals that initially inspired pioneers like Jacobs and Chris Carpenter are themselves only a relatively recent invention.
“If I died, and I was buried, and on my gravestone it said that grüner veltliner is now established in the Hills, I would be a happy corpse.”
“I see a fantastic future for it, because there’s a lot of interest in it,” Jacobs says. “It does produce a magnificent product, and I don’t see why it shouldn’t continue to evolve in that way.” He adds that this future will be “hopefully regionally focussed – people now realise it is a variety which is specifically sensitive to region more than anything else.” Carpenter is also bullish about the future of Australian grüner veltliner in the right regions – although he thinks more regions may be suitable than we currently believe. “My gut feeling is it’s still fundamentally a cool-climate variety,” he says. “I think in the time that we’ve had it in the ground, I’ve come to appreciate that it’s not as cool-climate loving as riesling or chardonnay – and certainly more tolerant of heat and dry. So I think there’s more flexibility than I initially thought … if I was planting a new vineyard in a slightly untested climate, I’d be thinking about grüner. And I think we’ve got the market demand now that people are pretty excited to try new grüners.”
“If we’re thinking about varieties that can set us up to break out of people’s preconceptions about Australia only producing sun-drenched boozy reds, then grüner is a pretty strong advocate for what we can do.”
Importantly, that demand for new Australian grüner veltliners isn’t strictly limited to Australian consumers – both Jacobs and Carpenter are seeing demand for Australian examples slowly increasing in the global marketplace. Jacobs pins this down to the variety’s innate food-friendliness – which sees it work not only with traditional Austrian fare, but also a wide array of cuisines that are normally difficult to pair wine with, including South-East Asian, Chinese, Japanese, and Indian food: “A lot of the original comments on the food compatibility, in particular the Asian cuisine compatibility, was that people saw an umami quality to grüner,” he says. “I can see what they’re talking about – because generally any product which has an umami profile, be it soy or whatever, is really the result of fermented proteins. And grüner as a variety has fairly high proteins.” While he acknowledges that it’s still “early days”, he adds, “I think that could be a very exciting future evolution – for local producers to establish markets in these areas.” It’s a sentiment that Carpenter concurs with: “If you’re sitting in a tropical climate and eating amazing seafood, it’s very hard to think about South Australian shiraz – but it’s pretty tempting to think of a nice cold grüner,” he says. “If we’re thinking about varieties that can set us up to break out of people’s preconceptions about Australia only producing sun-drenched boozy reds, then grüner is a pretty strong advocate for what we can do.”
Our panel: Gill Sykes, freelance wine consultant and educator; Conor Braisier, winemaker, Mt. Bera Heritage Estate; Callie Poole, head sommelier, Reine & La Rue; Andrew Wyse, founder, Cardwell Cellars; Madeleine Horrigan, wine educator and MW student; Tony Layton, business manager (Regional Collection and St. Huberts cellar door), Treasury Wine Estates; Hayley Farquar, wine merchant, City Wine Shop and The European.
Sykes commenced the discussion by observing that, for her, the tasting was a “polarising experience” – between examples that she found delicious and others that didn’t meet the mark. For her, the examples that succeeded showed what she called “purity of fruit – if I get a bit of that kind of sea spray and a little bit the talc-iness, I’m happy with that. That’s what grüner is for me.” Of the wines that she found less successful, she said they “could be quite delicate and light – but then there’s quite high alcohol. That puts me off … there’s an imbalance.” Within those successful wines, Sykes was surprised to find some examples that were more obviously ripe: “they were getting more into a stone fruit kernel spectrum, and coming a little bit more into tropical fruit … that perked my eyes up a little bit.” She added: “There was a wine in there where I thought, ‘Oh, this is great. I’d love to drink it. It’s really lovely.’ Would I have guessed it as a grüner in another blind lineup? Maybe not, but I really loved it – it was quite ripe, and had peach melba character, and was exotic.”
It’s an observation that Farquar echoed – she saw a “diversity across the ripeness of fruit – there were some that I found very green and almost astringent. And then there were others that I felt were very ripe – almost into that stone fruit, even leaning into the tropical fruit category.” She summarised it neatly: “It surprised me to see the variety within the grape variety.”
“In Austria, so much of the production is focused on physiological ripeness in order to complement the natural acidity – but because it can be more challenging to achieve the same level of acidity here in Australia, you have to balance this ripeness question.”
For Wyse, the question of ripeness was one of the key distinguishing features between Australian and Austrian examples of grüner veltliner. “In Austria, so much of the production is focused on physiological ripeness in order to complement the natural acidity – but because it can be more challenging to achieve the same level of acidity here in Australia, you have to balance this ripeness question. Do you pick a bit early and end up with something that’s a little bit underripe – which then doesn’t show maybe the depth of fruit that’s possible if you’re able to reach physiological ripeness – because you want to keep the acidity?” For him, the most successful examples balanced that acidity and ripeness “very nicely,” and also showed “some spiciness, which is also characteristic of the variety.” He added: “For me, some of the most impressive wines were where I could see the acidity – it felt natural, it didn’t feel forced – and there wasn’t an anaemic fruit component, or fruit missing on the palate.”
Horrigan argued that the management of ‘green’ characters in the wine was what separated the best examples of Australian grüner veltliner from the less successful ones: “I think that green character is something I look for in a grüner – it’s varietally distinctive,” she said.“But for me, the question is whether it’s overwhelming, or whether it’s balanced – whether there’s good fruit ripeness, and whether that green note is integrated with the fruit in the wine making. But I always look for that salty, minerally, spicy quality in grüner – that’s what I personally want.”
“That green character is something I look for in a grüner – it’s varietally distinctive. But for me, the question is whether it’s overwhelming, or whether it’s balanced.”
Brasier observed that the question of whether fruit character is underripe or overripe can’t be discussed without also addressing the question of winemaking style – which in turn means talking about what consumers want or expect from a glass of grüner veltliner. “Coming at this from a wine show lens, a lot of what’s getting awarded at the moment – in Adelaide Hills and Adelaide wine shows, where we’ve got a lot of Adelaide Hills grüner in them – is definitely on the sauvignon blanc end of things,” he said. “That really over-the-top line of green fruit – kiwi, gooseberry, that sort of thing.” He added: “In my part of the world it’s getting pigeonholed as a replacement for sauvignon blanc – everyone’s picking it green and lean and going 100% stainless steel ferment, not building texture into it, not building weight into it.” He was pleased to see in the line-up examples of “richer, fuller, more textural styles that show up what grüner can be,” and added: “You can go too far, definitely – then they’re overblown and flabby – but when you get that tightrope right, they look pretty fun.”
The question of winemaking style brought up the topic of typicity – and the extent to which Australian grüners should look to emulate the Austrian originals. Poole said, “I think at the beginning, I was benchmarking everything against what I thought grüner should taste like – that typicity conversation. Then as we went through, I had to revisit the first bracket all over again – because as we went through, I was kind of like, ‘Oh, maybe the secondary influence, which doesn’t exist in the wines we usually see from Austria, is actually more of what I tend to gravitate towards’.”
”At the beginning, I was benchmarking everything against what I thought grüner should taste like – that typicity conversation. Then as we went through, I had to revisit the first bracket all over again.”
To this point, Wyse – who imports Austrian wine to Australia – added that there was a distinction between the kinds of grüners seen in the Austrian domestic market and the kinds of Austrian wines that are selected by Australian importers to cater local expectations: “This leanness, it’s maybe partly a reflection of the kind of wines from Austria that come into the market that people actually try,” he said. “It’s a style that is, I think, a departure from most of the examples that are made in Austria now.”
This observation brought up the question of price point, and how much of a market there could be for Australian grüner veltliners of serious ambition. For Layton, an approachable price point is part of what makes grüner so appealing. “I go into a restaurant – I have a beer or I have a glass of sparkling, and then I have an aromatic white, be it a riesling, or a grüner or something like that,” he said. “Then I’m moving on to, you know, a pinot or a cabernet or something else. That’s where I’m spending my larger amount of money. For grüner, I see it as topping out at $80–90 on a restaurant list, or $40–50 retail – personally, I think that’s the sweet spot.” He added that he was fortunate that the wines he preferred tended to stick to this price point: “I lean more into those of purer, fruity, prettier, lighter style kind of styles.” Poole added that she would find it hard to justify listing the more expensive examples of Australian grüner on her own restaurant wine list: “I wouldn’t put a grüner for $200–250 on our list, because I know it wouldn’t sell. There’s only a couple producers of sauvignon blanc from Australia in that same price point that you would sell. Same thing with riesling at that same price point that would sell – so why does this international variety that nobody can pronounce correctly warrant that same kind of price point in that slot on the list?”
Wyse wrapped up the discussion by observing that the focus on lighter, fresher styles of the variety undersells its potential at the table. “It doesn’t have to be pigeonholed as just an aromatic white,” he said. “You can do it alongside very classic, heavy dishes. You can do it with seafood. You can do it with curry. You can do it with spice. Austrian wine marketing has always emphasised that grüner for sommeliers is like a dream on the list – because it can go well with anything.”
Gill Sykes has twenty-plus years of experience in the wine industry including many years managing a wine retail outlet and wine education centre – a role that saw her take on wine buying, importing, marketing and orchestrating wine courses and events. She is a certified wine educator, holds the WSET Diploma, and is an accredited French Wine Scholar. She currently works as a freelance consultant and runs the wine program at The Chandlery, Port Melbourne, whilst teaching at both Cardwell Cellars and Armadale Cellars. She is an experienced wine show judge who has sat on judging panels at the Decanter World Wine Awards and The London International Wine Competition. She also currently sits as a committee member for both Sommeliers Australia and Femier Cru.
Conor Braisier grew up around food and wine, with both of his parents being involved in wine and hospitality. After completing high school he bounced between the Hunter Valley and Europe working vintages before commencing studying viticulture and oenology at the university of Adelaide. Upon completion of this degree, he worked in Margaret River, McLaren Vale and Clare Valley before moving back to the Hunter and working in winemaking roles at several Hunter-based wineries. In 2023 he took the responsibility to build and run the new winery at Mt. Bera Heritage Estate in the Adelaide Hills, with a focus on small -batch organic and biodynamic production of alternative varieties.
Callie Poole moved to Melbourne in 2015 and worked her way through fine-dining restaurants such as Vue de Monde and more modest wine bars such as Congress Wine. Starting her Wine & Spirits Education Trust (WSET) and Court of Master Sommeliers (CMS) journey around the same time, she completed both her WSET Diploma and CMS Advanced exams in 2024. She is currently the head sommelier at Reine & La Rue, a modern French restaurant in Melbourne’s CBD, whose wine list was recently awarded three glasses at the Australian Wine List of the Year Awards.
Andrew Wyse is a Melbourne-based wine importer and retailer. He is the co-founder of Cardwell Cellars, the executive director of Vinfair, and sits on the national executive committee of Sommeliers Australia. His background spans sommelier work, wine education, wine travel, and wine imports, with a particular focus on the wines of Central and Eastern Europe.
Madeleine Horrigan is a wine educator and communications specialist with over a decade of experience across Australia, Germany, and the UK. Her journey in wine began at her family’s Pimpernel Vineyards in the Yarra Valley, producers of boutique wines, where her passion for the industry took root. Currently, Horrigan is a WSET-certified Wine Educator with Melbourne Wine School, and she also offers freelance wine communication services, including digital marketing, content creation, and hosting tasting events. Her clients include wineries, retailers, and wine publications. Horrigan earned her WSET Diploma in 2019 and is currently a Stage 2 Master of Wine candidate, combining her expertise and global perspective to inspire and inform wine enthusiasts and professionals alike.
Tony Layton is originally from the United Kingdom, where he was a publican at the age of twenty-one. After moving to Australia, he found a love of wine by doing harvest in Margaret River, then moved to Sydney and then Melbourne following this love of wine in the hospitality trade. Here he spent almost ten years working with The European Group across City Wine Shop, and was on the opening team at Siglo. He moved to the Yarra in 2011 after completing the Certified Sommelier Certificate from the Court of Master Sommeliers to work for Giant Steps. He worked for many brands and producers in the region before moving to Treasury Wine Estates in 2021. He now calls St. Huberts home, where he oversees the business whilst working as an ambassador across the portfolio and sells to high end restaurant groups. He possesses a Level 3 Award in Wines from the Wine and Spirits Education Trust and teaches the Level 2 Award internally at Treasury Wine Estates. He has recently done the Advanced Wine Assessment Course at the Australian Wine Research Institute, and has judged at the Melbourne Royal Wine Awards, the James Halliday Chardonnay & Cabernet Challenge, and some smaller regional shows.
Hayley Farquar currently works as a bar supervisor and wine merchant at City Wine Shop and The European. She possesses an Introductory Sommelier Certificate from the Court of Master Sommeliers, and is currently working towards her Level 3 Award in Wines from the Wine & Spirits Education Trust.
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