Story of Lenz

When you are born into one of the great wine families of Austria your DNA automatically turns to constantly pioneering new frontiers in fine wine. My grandfather pushed the limits with the invention of a new trellising system. My father went export already in the early 60-ies, introduced bio-dynamic vine growing in Austria back in 1978. And I followed the advice of “Grandpa Gruener” ( my grandfather, the great Prof. Dr. Lenz Moser ) to promote Gruener Veltliner as a standalone grape back in the early 1980-ies, being the first to do so successfully in creating a varietal range in Austria, under the banner of Lenz Moser winery,  with Gruener being the backbone of the program. A lifelong love affair with this grape was the result.

Interesting also to note that apart from the first 2 years in wine I always devoted my work to fine wines – the first two years I yielded to the temptation of producing mass wine in order to finance premium production – well, that did not work as I got too distracted from my goal to produce top wines – hence we abandoned this field quickly and devoted myself working on fine wine only ever since.

NEW CHAPTER, by LENZMARK WINES is indeed the new project together with my congenial partner Markus Huber from Traisental, Niederösterreich, Austria. I watched Markus “grow” for the last 20 years, became a huge fan of his attitude, his character and ethics and of course his wines. Lucky I am ( and we are ;-) as we both got together in early 2020 to think what we could do together. It did not take us long to decide in partnering in a Gruner Veltliner project. Yet, the ambitious of both of us told us clearly, let us start all over again, even de-learn in forgetting everything we did, we knew about our favorite grape.

We did analyze the market carefully and wondered why on earth Gruener never made it across the German speaking world in a major way? Yes, you can find Gruener in a lot of countries around the world, it is recognized by wine lovers, sommeliers and journalists as a hidden treasure. However, the consumer worldwide never caught onto the idea of this beloved grape form Austria.

We are convinced it mainly has to do ( and of course it is several other factors too ) with the taste profile which might be a bit too extreme for the international public. We then analyzed the elements of Gruener and, after numerous competitive tastings with great whites from around the world we newly defined Gruener Veltliner. We wanted a wine which still displays all the positive elements of the grape, and also brings in new elements of pleasure, of finesse, elegance, harmony, complexity  and power at the same time – a newly enhanced Gruener for a broader appeal and the new and young discerning consumer.  We then started toying with the idea of blending gruener a bit with other grapes from Austria – only to the tune of a maximum 10% ( to stay well in the legal limits ). And, helas, the result wowed us so much, we went on to create this project – the basis being a completely newly defined Gruener Veltliner from Austria. How did we do it – well this will remain our secret formula.

Call me conservative, yet I am a believer in the “what’s in the glass” theorem. My mentor Bob Mondavi always said: “If the quality in the glass is not good enough, if it does not excite your customers, go home and make a bitter wine!”

“A truly great wine ( nothing to do with price ) gets my heart beating faster, longing for the second sip fast and making me happy” is one element of loyalty for a wine ( very personal for me ) and the other element is the James Laube law “ people are drinking the story”. These 2 parameters have to be met in order to get me going. And, wow, NEW CHAPTER makes me tick!

This new wine will prevail in open and blind tastings with other great whites from around the world’s great white wine producing nations. We love to benchmark ourselves with our favorites wines from Austria ( of course ) yet also with successful wines such as the superb Cloudy Bay, the unmistakable Chateau Carbonieux blanc, a character Chateau Simone, great German whites, delicate new world chardonnays and of course some white burgundies, and  a few more. 

This new wine not only stands for the best tradition of 2 wine personalities with 60 vintages under their belt ( combined ) it also stands for its origin, Austria. It epitomizes the modern elements of our home country and will be an ambassador to the world of fine wine on the world stage.