I’ve been buying wine for 15 years, and yet—almost daily—I’m humbled by how much I still don’t know. That feeling is especially true when I come across a wine revered the world over for its pedigree, and yet I’ve somehow missed it.

Most recently, that was Austria’s Weingut Velich: a producer I hadn’t encountered before* (out of the New York market for nearly two decades, we were passing ships!), but known for making some of the finest Chardonnay-based wines in all of Europe. Dotting top wine lists abroad, they’ve been selling everything without ever needing to cross an ocean.

Luckily, the wines are now back in New York, and I corrected their absence from our selection the moment I tasted them. The outstanding lineup comes from a distinctive outcropping of chalky limestone soils, calcareous ground that evokes both Jura and Burgundy. With tension and texture you only find in the world’s top white wines. —Chris

Velich – and their now signature variety – came from a happy accident in 1959, when the Pinot Blanc Helmut Velich thought he had planted turned out to be Chardonnay. With Lake Neusiedl to the West and Hungary mere miles to the East, the original planting sits on a particularly special outcropping of calcareous soils, rich in active limestone. This soil imparts remarkable acidity to the fruit, shaping the serendipitously planted Chardonnay here; it’s what makes Velich such a benchmark for the varietal in Austria.

The modern-day winery came to life in the 1990s under Helmut’s sons, Heinz and Roland, who produced the estate’s first dry Chardonnay.

When Roland left in 2001 to launch the equally referential Moric, Heinz made Chardonnay the central focus of the winery. The rest is history.

Heinz Velich; photo by Peter Rigaud

There are variations in approach across cuvées, but as you taste through the range, a signature emerges—rooted in limestone and unmistakably shaped by Heinz.

Tension and length practically vibrate through the entire lineup. Fermentations are native and, with one exception, carried out in wood. Any wine involving Chardonnay is also aged in wood. For the two pure Chardonnay bottlings, that aging is long and quiet (up to two years for the top wine, Tiglat) without a single stir of the lees. Bottling is done without fining or filtration.

It's an untouched process that delivers world-class, flinty reduction while allowing for the kind of complexity and evolution that can only be achieved through multiple winters in barrel.

This lineup is a thrill, from bottom to top: 

2023 Weingut Velich Welschriesling, $25
The one wine that sees no Chardonnay, Heinz calls this zesty, quenching wine “our Aligote.”

2021 Weingut Velich 'TO', $35
Meaning ‘lake’ in Hungarian, this is a blend of (mainly) Chardonnay from the estate's youngest vines, blended with small amounts of Sauvignon Blanc and Welschriesling. A great introduction to the driven style of Chard here but with a more open-knit ,orange citrus layer coming from the blend. Delicious wine.

2021 Weingut Velich 'Darscho' Chardonnay, $65
Darscho (meaning 'warm lake' in French) is all Chardonnay from vines between 30-40 years old, fermented and aged 18 months in wood. A smoky, tense rendition of Chardonnay.

2021 Weingut Velich 'Tiglat' Chardonnay, $110
Chardonnay from the original plot planted in 1959; a selection of the best fruit from this limestone-driven site goes into Tiglat. And, patience is the word here; with the wine seeing up to two years in wood before spending another 6 months in bottle before release. A powerful, impactful wine whose material is matched by its acidity. Very special.

SHOP VELICH

*Here’s the truth. I tasted the wine at Vie Vinum in Austria last year and even without the context for their work, still made sure to take a photo of the wine because it was so damn tasty. The same ‘21 on offer today.