Paul D. Grüner Veltliner

Can Liter Bottles Measure Up?

By Dave McIntyre
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Washington Post

Paul D. Grüner Veltliner 2008
* 1/2Austria, $10 (Great Value)

Winemaker Paul Direder is only 19 years old, but this debut wine hints at a great future for him. It is dry yet impressively ripe, with vibrant lime zest flavors and an appealing richness in the mouth feel, and it should be a perfect wine for late summer patio dining. It is new to this market, but look for it everywhere soon. There is also a Zweigelt red wine in liter format (*).

The 750-milliliter bottle of wine is said to have become the standard hundreds of years ago because it was the size a healthy glass blower could produce with a single lungful of air. Then, according to “The Great Big Book of Everything” (a.k.a. the Oxford Companion to Wine, edited by British wine goddess Jancis Robinson), it was rationalized as the appropriate serving for one man per meal, then one man per day, then . . . well, nowadays maybe the ration for a couple over a special-occasion dinner.

The bottle size can be hard to sell, however. Liters do not look dramatically different from the standard 750-ml size, so consumers might not realize they are getting “33 percent free” wine for the price.

“We sold a bunch of liters last year when we put them out on a floor display,” said Phil Bernstein of Addy Bassin’s MacArthur Beverages as he pulled some dusty liter bottles from their hiding place on a lower shelf. That extra retail effort may be needed to convince consumers of the value in liters.

But here’s why we should pay attention to liters: The wines in them are typically inexpensive, low in alcohol and refreshing, which makes them an ideal value for casual patio sipping. (These wines would be ideal for ethnic restaurants that do not normally concentrate on their wine lists: Chinese, Thai and Latin American, for example.)

One of my favorites is the Paul D. Gruner Veltliner 2008 from Austrian winemaker Paul Direder, a 19-year-old kid who cannot even drink his own wine legally in this country. New to this market, from Chantilly-based Austrian importer Klaus Wittauer, the wine is a terrific value at $10 for the liter (think $7 a bottle).