Austria · Wagram

Weingut Leth

A family winery in Fels am Wagram, where Franz Leth Junior leads a Grüner Veltliner range from bright, stainless-steel regional wines to the fuller single-vineyard Brunnthal.

The producer

Weingut Leth began in the 1960s with Franz and Barbara Leth and is now led by Franz Leth Junior. In Fels am Wagram, Grüner Veltliner is the estate’s central grape, running from light summer wines through Klassik bottlings to named vineyards. The winery is certified organic and sustainable, with no herbicides or insecticides, detailed canopy work, yield limits and selective hand harvesting shaping the fruit before it reaches the cellar.

Wagram’s wind-blown loess is most vivid in Grüner Veltliner Fels Ried Brunnthal. Deep, chalk-rich loess is linked to a denser wine of yellow fruit and pepper, while the reviewed 2022 added apricot, mango, blossom honey, herbal savouriness, fine acidity and a silky mineral texture after 11 months in large wood. For a lighter contrast, the 2025 regional Grüner Veltliner brings pear, honeydew melon, herbs, white pepper and lime from low-temperature stainless-steel fermentation.

Known for

Grüner Veltliner from Wagram loess, from fresh regional wines to single-vineyard Brunnthal.

Notable facts

The story

A vineyard of more than 250 varieties

About 20 years ago, Franz Leth senior planted an experimental mixed vineyard to realise a long-held dream: rare and ancient grape varieties growing together in one place. Rather than fill the plot with the Grüner Veltliner that anchors much of the family estate, he kept adding unfamiliar vines. The vineyard eventually grew to contain more than 250 varieties, creating a densely mixed planting of old and uncommon grapes in Fels am Wagram. It sits apart from a wine such as Grüner Veltliner Fels Ried Brunnthal, where one named site is bottled through the lens of a single grape.

From the atlas

Weingut Leth

At A Glance

Weingut Leth is a family winery in Fels am Wagram, Lower Austria, led by Franz Leth Junior. Grüner Veltliner occupies more than half of the 58 hectares reported by Falstaff, so the grape runs from fresh regional bottlings to the single-vineyard Brunnthal. Certified-organic farming, selective hand harvesting and Wagram’s deep loess set the frame for wines that move from lime and white pepper toward yellow fruit, breadth and mineral texture.

The Producer

Franz and Barbara Leth began the estate in the 1960s; their grandson, Franz Leth Junior, now leads it. Grüner Veltliner is the central grape, with Roter Veltliner and Riesling alongside it, and the winery is part of Österreichische Traditionsweingüter. That family continuity appears in a range built around one local variety: a light Grüner can show pear, herbs and lime, while a named Fels vineyard such as Brunnthal can carry more yellow fruit and weight.

Place

Fels am Wagram sits in Lower Austria’s Wagram region, where loess is the defining ground beneath many vineyards. For Leth, the regional name matters most through Grüner Veltliner: the estate uses it for summer wines, Klassik wines and single-vineyard bottlings, allowing the same grape to change shape as the label becomes more site-specific. Brunnthal, a Fels single-vineyard Grüner, is the clearest example, with a fuller yellow-fruit profile than the regional 2025 Leth Grüner Veltliner.

Soil And Site

Wagram’s loess was deposited by glacial winds over an ancient Danube rock base and can reach 20 metres deep. Brunnthal has deep, chalk-rich loess, and Leth links this soil to the wine’s density. In the glass, that site is described through pronounced yellow fruit and pepper spice rather than through a vague promise of place: the ground is relevant because the Brunnthal bottling has a broader, more substantial palate than a simple fresh Grüner.

Story

The family estate has expanded across three generations, but a more recent turn was its move to organic certification. Falstaff reports that the family tested organic cultivation for more than a decade before the entire estate became certified organic with the 2021 harvest. The work includes no herbicides or insecticides, alongside biodiversity measures and responsible resource use. That decision sits behind a Grüner Veltliner programme in which fruit is picked by hand in several passes rather than gathered as one uniform crop.

Vineyards And Cellar

Leth limits yields, manages the canopy in detail and harvests exclusively by hand through several selective passes. Those choices allow different ripeness levels in Grüner Veltliner to be sorted in the vineyard before the wine reaches the cellar, helping preserve both ripe fruit and acidity. The cellar then separates the range by purpose: the 2025 regional Grüner is fermented at low temperature in stainless steel, while Falstaff reports that top-site wines spend at least a year in large traditional wooden barrels. The 2022 Brunnthal spent 11 months in large wood, adding texture without turning its apricot and pepper notes into an oak-led wine.

Wines

The range begins with light, fresh, aromatic summer wines, then moves to Klassik bottlings intended to show a clear varietal Grüner Veltliner character, before arriving at individual vineyards. Roter Veltliner and Riesling broaden the white-wine selection, while the reds take either a fruity classical direction or a more powerful reserve style.

Within Grüner Veltliner, the structural shift is easy to follow. The 2025 Leth Grüner Veltliner is a stainless-steel wine with pear, honeydew melon, herbs, white pepper and lime; its light body and acidity suit the early, fresh end of the range. Brunnthal is the site-focused step upward: the documented 2022 showed ripe yellow tropical fruit, apricot, mango, blossom honey, herbal savouriness, stone fruit, fine acidity, silky texture and a mineral finish.

In The Glass

Start with the regional 2025 Leth Grüner Veltliner for its direct, cool-fruit profile. Pear and honeydew melon arrive first, followed by herbs, white pepper and lime. Low-temperature stainless-steel fermentation keeps the fruit and citrus clear, while the palate stays light-bodied and fresh rather than creamy or oak-marked. Its acidity carries the peppery and herbal notes through a dry finish, making it a useful picture of Grüner Veltliner before a vineyard bottling adds more weight.

A Bottle To Understand It

Choose Grüner Veltliner Fels Ried Brunnthal. It is a single-vineyard Grüner from deep, chalk-rich loess in Fels, and it brings Leth’s place, farming and cellar choices into one bottle. The 2022 showed apricot, mango, stone fruit, blossom honey and delicate herbal savouriness, with fine acidity beneath a silky, mineral palate. Eleven months in a large wooden barrel supplied breadth and texture, while pepper spice and yellow fruit kept the vineyard at the centre. Begin here when the aim is to taste how Leth moves beyond a fresh regional Grüner without losing the grape’s dry, peppery line.

Anecdote

About 20 years ago, Franz Leth senior planted an experimental mixed vineyard to realise a long-held dream of growing rare and ancient grape varieties together. Instead of filling the site with one familiar grape, he continued adding varieties until the vineyard contained more than 250 of them. The planting became a physical collection of old and uncommon vines in the middle of a family estate otherwise anchored by Grüner Veltliner. It remains a notably different piece of ground from Brunnthal’s single-vineyard Grüner: one site holds a dense mixed planting of rare varieties, while the other is bottled to show one grape from one named Fels vineyard.

Final Word

Leth is most compelling through the contrast inside its Grüner Veltliner range: stainless-steel pear, lime and pepper at the regional level, then apricot, spice, acidity and mineral weight from Brunnthal’s deep loess. The labels make more sense once that progression is clear.

Sources

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