Digging the dirt under Grüner Veltliner

See also The best Welschriesling in the world? and Some great Austrian Rieslings published earlier this week.

Does the dirt make the difference? The Austrian producers I have met over the years talk a good deal about the soil and rock beneath their feet, and their vines, and I always come home after a visit or a tasting determined to get the terminology – such as the wonderfully onomatopoeic Urgestein (primary rock such as gneiss) - clear in my head. I even have in my possession a fantastic resource called Rocky Austria, produced by the Austrian Geologische Bundesanstalt and...