Weingut F.X. Pichler Ried Loibenberg Smaragd Gruner Veltliner 2017
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James
Suckling -
Wine
Spectator -
Robert
Parker
Product Details
Your Rating
Somm Note
Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
Powerful and ripe with a wide spectrum of yellow-fruit aromas, but also plenty of tobacco and green pepper. After a bold initial impression on the palate, mineral freshness arrives to lift the very long, concentrated finish.
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Wine Spectator
This combines concentration and elegance, displaying a spicy essence, with pear and singed orange peel flavors and herbal notes that join on the finish. Features nice weight, savory minerality and lip-smacking acidity for balance. Very well-sculpted.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2017 Ried Loibenberg Grüner Veltliner Smaragd is from granite and gneiss soils on the south-facing terraces of the prestigious cru. Pure, fine and flinty on the elegant and even coolish, yellow-fruit nose, this is a full-bodied, rich and generous but elegant Veltliner with piquant acidity and salinity from the gneiss soils. Powerful and rich but immersive in its elegance, finesse, freshness and minerality. Good grip
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2021-
James
Suckling
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James
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James
Suckling
Fun to say and delightfully easy to drink, Grüner Veltliner calls Austria its homeland. While some easily quaffable Grüners come in a one-liter—a convenient size—many high caliber single vineyard bottlings can benefit from cellar aging. Somm Secret—About 75% of the world’s Grüner Veltliner comes from Austria but the variety is gaining ground in other countries, namely Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and the United States.
As Austria’s most prestigious wine growing region, the landscape of the Wachau is—not surprisingly—one of its most dramatic. Millions of years ago, the Danube River chiseled its way through the earth, creating steep terraces of decomposed volcanic and metamorphic rock. Harsh Ice Age winds brought deposits of ancient glacial dust and loess to the terrace’s eastern faces. Today these steep surfaces of nutrient-poor and fast draining soil are home to some of Austria’s very best sites for both Grüner Veltliner and Riesling.
Wachau is small, comprising a mere three percent of Austria’s vine surface and, considering relatively low yields, represents a miniscule proportion of total wine production. Diurnal temperature shifts in Wachau facilitate great balance of sugar and phenolic ripeness in its grapes. At night cold air from the Alps and forests in the northwest displace warm afternoon air, which gets sucked upstream along the Danube.
Its sites are actually so varied and distinct that more emphasis is going into vineyard-designated offerings even despite grape variety. Grüner Veltliner and Riesling are most prominent, but the region produces Chardonnay, Pinot Blanc (Weissburgunder), Pinot Gris, Sauvignon Blanc and Zweigelt among other local variants.