As a food and wine writer, I am frequently faced with a couple of challenges. One is being asked to bring a wine to dinner at someone's home without being given much information about the menu. The other is being asked to choose a wine for the table at a restaurant where everyone is having something different. At times like those I make sure I have a versatile wine in my hip pocket.
When the meal calls for a white wine I often bypass chardonnay, sauvignon blanc and pinot grigio for the less well-known, but imminently food-friendly, gruner veltliner (GROO-ner FELT-lee-ner).
Grüner veltliner, affectionately known as "gru-ve", is most widely grown in Austria, where at least two DACs (Districtus Austriae Controllatus) apply to this varietal. It is also found in the Slovak and Czech Republics.
This article appears in Jan 13-19, 2011.