Grüner Veltliner smells like peas. Now, this may not sound wholly appealing, but hey, Sauvignon Blanc smells like cat piss and it’s all the rage.

What’s that, you say? What the hell is Grüner Veltliner? Alright, let’s back things up a bit, shall we?

Grüner Veltliner is Austria’s biggest claim to fame, aside from The Sound of Music and Wiener schnitzel. OK, I kid — but in the wine world, Grüner is absolutely Austria’s standard-bearer. It is the country’s most planted grapevine, taking up over a third of Austria’s total vineyard space. Aside from a few experimental plots scattered throughout the rest of the world, you really won’t find it growing anywhere else.

Since anglophones seem to have so much trouble with those arm’s-length Germanic words, Grüner Veltliner is commonly shortened to just “Grüner”; some like to take the first few letters of each word, stick them together and call it “GruVe” (pronounced “groovy”). Personally, I find this a little too flower-child for my tastes, but hey, whatever works.

Around here, Grüner is more of a seasonal wine, appearing throughout the early summer and lingering throughout the warm months. “Grüner” literally means “green” in German, an apt description of this wine; it should remind you of all sorts of fresh green herbs and veggies — dill, asparagus, peas, watercress, lentils, and even Brussels sprouts. This green quality, combined with Grüner’s typical citrusy, dry palate, make it one of the best summer whites out there. It quenches your thirst on a hot day and pairs perfectly with all those summer salads, seafood, and light poultry dishes.

Though drinking Grüner when it is young and fresh — so as to enjoy it in all its crisp, refreshing glory — is quite common, this variety is also one of the few whites that can age quite well. The really high-end ones, especially those high in acidity, will last for well over a decade.

The acidity mellows out with time, but is necessary to provide the backbone for the wine’s structure as it matures.

Though it edges a little farther into the mainstream each year, Grüner remains among the world’s more unusual grape varieties. This is unlikely to change unless other countries begin to grow it in earnest. It’s kind of bittersweet; Grüner is so tasty that it’s a shame there isn’t more out there, but that limited supply also makes each bottle more of a treat.

Part of Grüner’s relative obscurity stems from the 1985 Austrian wine scandal, when several Austrian wine producers were found guilty of adding diethylene glycol to their wines in order to make the wines seem fuller-bodied and sweeter. (Check out my column from last week for more juicy details about this and other wine scandals throughout the ages.) Though diethylene glycol is virtually harmless in small doses, it also happens to be a constituent of antifreeze, so people were made to believe that Austrian wines were loaded with antifreeze. All the bad publicity was devastating to Austria’s small wine industry, causing exports to crash into the ground. The wine industry remained a fraction of its former self until the late 1990s and early 2000s.

However, though it was a hard lesson to learn, Austrians have since developed some of the most stringent wine laws in the world. Their quality control is phenomenal, and nowadays pretty much all Austrian wines are solidly well made. As a result, the prices aren’t always the cheapest out there, though you can usually find a decent Grüner for just under $20, and many delectable ones in the $20-$30 range. Trust me: they’re worth the few extra bucks.