Rotgipfler, the marginally less noble of the two white wine grape varieties traditionally associated with the dramatically full-bodied, long-lived spicy white wine of Austria’s Thermenregion. (The other is zierfandler.) Plantings have remained steady at about 120 ha/300 acres. It ripens late, but earlier than Zierfandler, and the wines are particularly high in extract, alcohol, and bouquet. dna profiling in Austria showed in 1998 that Rotgipfler is a natural cross of savagnin and roter veltliner.
