After all these years I have become relatively inured to the distracting lure of tasting notes. I can usually read through hundreds quite clinically, without being tempted to go and rip open a bottle. But re-reading these 200-plus tasting notes on current Austrian whites in the middle of a recent afternoon, I could hardly restrain myself from going down to the cellar and immersing myself in the very special quality of Grüner Veltliner and Austrian Riesling – full bodied but precisely etched and, usually, with quite enough acidity to keep them lively for several years in bottle. These are wines that are...