Today’s wine drinker has either long forgotten or perhaps wasn’t even drinking wine when the 80's Austrian wine scandal hit the news. A scandal involving unscrupulous large producers that dangerously pumped up their weak wines with ethylene –glycol. The jokes and snickers suggesting one keep these wines away from open flames have long vanished. Currently, it is hard to find such a concentration of so many exciting, edgy wines anywhere else the world. Although the varietals names may suggest the taste possibilities of their sweeter, low-alcohol Germanic neighbors, they are far from this. They are often being fuller bodied, dry and powerful. Austria’s wines are pristinely made by many perfectionist grower-producers that have fully resurrected this country’s reputation. Although we are grateful for the number of wine drinkers that have opened their mind and discovered the refreshing lift and kick of a young Gruner Veltliner, we are hopeful that they will go on to discover the more serious and cerebral offerings Austria has waiting in the wings.