Hold still. I want to watch your hands shake while you pour. Yes… like that. Keep your grip low on the stem — I like seeing the glass tremble. Look at the colour: pale gold with a green flash, like sunlight through wet leaves. Good.
Bring it to your lips, but don’t drink yet. Smell it. Sharp green apple, lime zest grated in slow spirals, cucumber sliced so thin the blade sings. Now there’s fennel frond, crushed coriander seed, wet stone after rain. Breathe deeper — I want you to drown in it.
Now taste. Let that acidity hit — don’t flinch. It snaps down your tongue before opening into pear skin, white peach, and the saline pull of a wave breaking over your mouth. Feel that faint prickle along your gums? That’s the phenolic grip — let it hold you there.
You’ll eat what I tell you: grilled sardines while the smoke still curls, pecorino shaved into ribbons so thin they melt on your tongue, fennel and grapefruit chilled until the cold bites. You’ll take another sip, because I said you could. And you’ll thank me.
Region: Südsteiermark (Southern Styria), Styria, Austria Grapes: Welschriesling
