The Art of Restraint: Bernhard Ott

On a small winery in Austria and a master winemaker whose creativity, identity and pursuit of excellence have led him to focus on one grape variety and one region. And, perhaps, on the finest Grüner Veltliner in the world. A masterclass in winemaking.

Last week, I attended a special tasting hosted by Norbert Unger of Bernhard Ott, the winery in Wagram, Austria. It was not the first time I had tasted its wonderful wines, but it was my first opportunity to attend a structured tasting devoted to the estate. On the way home, I found myself thinking that there is something almost contrary to instinct in Bernhard Ott’s story. The world of wine is a world that likes to expand: another grape variety, another vineyard, another region, another new wine and another story to tell. Wineries seek to offer a broader range, winemakers look for the next big thing, and entire regions try to reinvent themselves. This is particularly true in a commercial world where everyone is competing in an increasingly crowded market for excellent wines. To some extent, this is how the creative world works more generally, isn't it? We tend to associate progress with movement, freedom with a wealth of possibilities, and innovation with the ability to do something we have never done before.

Yet Bernhard Ott, one of Austria’s most distinctive proponents of Grüner Veltliner, has chosen an almost opposite path. Rather than trying to expand his world as far as possible, he has chosen to narrow it, focusing as intently as he can on a single grape variety and a single region. To say that Ott makes wine only from Grüner Veltliner would be to miss the point entirely. He has developed a long, almost intimate relationship with the variety. Not the relationship of someone who already knows all the answers, but of someone willing to keep asking the same questions, year after year, and to discover that the answers change. Perhaps the first thing that makes his story so interesting is the realisation that specialisation need not restrict the imagination. Sometimes, it is precisely what allows it to flourish. Tasting his Grüner Veltliners brings this into focus. Only then does the idea really become clear.

Grüner Veltliner is undoubtedly a grape variety closely associated with Austria, but it is easy to assume that familiarity is enough to understand it. There is something about it that invites simplicity: its familiar peppery character, freshness, fruit and, at times, an almost effortless lightness. Yet the closer one looks, the more apparent it becomes that the variety is anything but simple. It can be direct and approachable, but also profound, serious, complex and remarkably capable of development. It can tell a story about a place, a vintage, altitude, soil and human decisions.

Ott works in Wagram, about an hour’s drive north-west of Vienna, where the loess soils lend his wines a distinctive presence and texture. He also works in the neighbouring Kamptal. What interests me about his approach, however, is not simply the difference between these regions, but the way he allows those differences to emerge within his own world of wine. His vineyards are not merely a means of producing different versions of the same idea. They are places with their own character, and he seeks to listen to them.

As I listened to Norbert, I found myself thinking of restraint, moderation and minimalism as ways of describing Ott’s approach to winemaking. But these words can be misleading. They might suggest a winemaker who seeks to disappear, to relinquish influence, or simply to let nature take its course. That is not necessarily the right picture. Choosing not to intervene is not the same as making no decision. Sometimes it is the result of considerably more knowledge, experience and understanding than the decision to intervene.

Ott follows a fully biodynamic approach in the vineyards, pays close attention to the relationship between the vines and their surroundings, and harvests by hand. In the winery, he employs, among other things, whole clusters spontaneous fermentation and large wooden vessels. All of this can be described in technical terms, but I suspect the real point is not necessarily to produce wines that put the winemaker’s work on display. Rather, it is to make wines in which that work is perceptible precisely because it does not dominate. The more expert one becomes, the more one may discover that the most important ability is not knowing what to do, but recognising when to do nothing. Not every possibility needs to be pursued. Not every difference needs to be corrected. Not every characteristic needs to be emphasised. Sometimes the task is not to add something to a wine, but to avoid interfering with something that is already there. The winery produces around 400,000 bottles a year; Around 70 per cent of it reaches some 40 countries, while the remainder is sold locally to wine shops, business partners and restaurants. Private customers can buy the wines only at the winery in Feuersbrunn.

Am Berg is perhaps the natural place to begin. A thoroughly enjoyable wine, and an excellent introduction to the variety: direct, dry and fresh. It has an easy-going quality, freshness and immediacy, but also a spark of spice that reminds you that Grüner Veltliner is not content with pleasant fruit alone. It is a wine that asks for no particular effort to enjoy, yet does not simply disappear the moment you stop paying attention. There is clear pepperiness, delicate herbal character, a hint of yeast, and above all a sense of vitality and tension. It does not try to be more than it is, and that is precisely why it succeeds in being considerably more than an agreeable white wine.

Fass 4, a wine that has accompanied Ott since 1988 and played no small part in establishing his reputation, offers a rather different conversation. It comes from Hengstberg, an area that straddles the boundary between Wagram and Kamptal, and perhaps something of that meeting of places finds its way into the glass. Alongside the familiar peppery and herbal character of Grüner Veltliner, there is an almost saline quality and a suggestion of green spices. Its texture is fine and understated, without lacking presence. The long finish leaves an impression of saltiness, freshness and generosity, but never showiness. It is a wine that illustrates beautifully the difference between power and presence.

Then come the single-vineyard wines, where it becomes clear just how inadequate the word Grüner is as a description of what lies in the glass.

Spiegel comes from a cool, wind-exposed vineyard and offers a fascinating combination of concentration and herbal freshness, alongside minerality and an extraordinarily long finish. There is power here, but it is a power that has no need to announce itself.

Stein, by contrast, makes a rather different impression. Apples, floral honey, thyme and almond blossom meet a silky, fuller texture, one that nevertheless retains a sense of coolness and mineral tension. It seems almost to reconcile two qualities that do not usually sit comfortably together: ripeness and delicacy.

Kirchthal, meanwhile, speaks a drier, sharper and more precise language. There is something lemony, clean and focused about it, as though the wine has chosen to say very little, but to make sure that every word is in exactly the right place.

And Rosenberg is perhaps the clearest expression of Ott’s ability to produce a wine that is assertive and authoritative without becoming heavy-handed. It has concentration, but its power remains restrained. The body is not necessarily full, yet its presence is persistent and precise. It demonstrates that intensity need not be extrovert, and that sometimes it is restraint that allows a wine to linger in the memory.

The 2021 vintage was the first in the history of Wagram to receive a rating of 100 points from A la Carte and 99 points from Falstaff. In the same year, the wine was also named the finest Grüner Veltliner, and therefore the best in the world, in James Suckling’s Top 100 Wines of Austria. The 2023 vintage followed suit, receiving 100 points once again from both publications. Quite an achievement.

It seems to me that Bernhard Ott’s Grüner Veltliners are not merely different from one another; each offers a different answer to the question of what Grüner Veltliner can be. One speaks in pepper and herbs, another in salinity and texture. One offers an almost transparent freshness, another depth and concentration. There is no attempt to impose a single flavour signature on every vineyard. Instead, there is a sense of a shared language, within which each wine is free to speak in its own accent. Their differences are particularly compelling because they coexist with a clear sense of a single guiding hand and a consistent winemaking philosophy. And this may be one of the most important lessons Bernhard Ott has to offer about the identity of a winery. Identity does not have to mean that all the wines taste alike. It can be expressed precisely through the ability to allow each wine to be different without the winery losing its sense of self. In other words, identity here is not necessarily uniformity of taste; it is consistency of thought.

And the point extends well beyond the world of Grüner Veltliner. The Kirchthal Riesling 2023 is a fresh, fruit-driven and mineral wine, with elegant finesse and a precise structure. White peach, saffron, a floral bouquet and a bright citrus freshness all find their way into the glass. The grapes are harvested by hand, gently pressed in a basket press, spontaneously fermented and matured for two winters in large wooden casks. An excellent Riesling, with the potential to develop over many years.

Rosalie is a rosé with character and personality, made from Pinot Noir and Zweigelt grown in the winery’s vineyards in Wagram and at higher-altitude sites in Kamptal. It was conceived as a rosé in its own right, rather than as a by-product of red wine production. Its ambition is to combine complexity, dryness and elegance, with Pinot Noir contributing additional layers and ageing potential.

Spectrum is an unusual blend that brings together grape varieties with deep historical roots in the family’s vineyards: Traminer, Müller-Thurgau, Silvaner, Roter Veltliner and Weissburgunder. The grapes come from vineyards in Wagram and Kamptal, on loess and gravel soils. They are harvested by hand in three separate passes, reflecting the different ripening times of the varieties. The wine is bottled unfiltered. It is a tribute to the varietal diversity of the family’s historic vineyards, and to a tradition that extends beyond Grüner Veltliner alone. These wines do not necessarily challenge Ott’s central commitment to Grüner Veltliner; rather, they sharpen our understanding of it. They remind us that his specialisation does not stem from a lack of curiosity about the wider world, but from a conscious decision about where to focus most of his attention.

In a world that rewards expansion, visibility and the next new thing, there is something almost subversive about someone who devotes his life to going deeper. Not because he believes there is nothing else to discover, but because he is convinced that he has yet to uncover everything that lies directly in front of him.

Perhaps this, ultimately, is the art of restraint. Not being content with little, but understanding just how much there can be in a little. And, no less importantly, recognising that sometimes the way to discover an entire world is not to open more doors, but to remain in one place long enough to begin noticing everything we had failed to see before. A masterclass in winemaking. ■

Bernhard Ott wines are imported into Israel by Alon Cohen (+972 54 683 8868).

For more thoughts and new posts by David Amzallag see winethoughts.blog

בעולם שמתגמל אותנו על התרחבות, על נראות ועל הדבר החדש הבא, יש משהו כמעט חתרני באדם שמקדיש את חייו להעמקה. לא מפני שהוא חושב שאין עוד מה לגלות, אלא מפני שהוא משוכנע שעדיין לא גילה את כל מה שנמצא ממש מולו. אולי זו, בסופו של דבר, האמנות שבצמצום. לא להסתפק במעט, אלא להבין עד כמה מעט יכול להיות הרבה. ולא פחות מכך, לדעת שלפעמים הדרך לגלות עולם שלם אינה עוברת דרך פתיחת דלתות נוספות, אלא דרך שהייה ממושכת במקום אחד, עד שמתחילים להבחין בכל מה שלא ראינו קודם. מופת של ייננות.  ■

את היינות של Bernhard Ott מייבאים לישראל החגיגה של אלון (054-6838868).

על התמונה שבראש העמוד. יקב OTT ב-Feuersbrunn שב-Wagram, אוסטריה (צילום של עמרי יצחק).

למחשבות נוספות של דויד אמזלג ולקבלת עדכון על פוסטים חדשים ראו www.winethoughts.blog