Winemaker Notes
Prager’s stylistic signature is that of aromatic complexity coupled with power and tension. High-density planting and long hang times ensure ripe fruit flavors and concentration, yet allowing leaves to shade the fruit lend vibrant aromatics of grasses, herbs, and wildflowers. Minerality is a constant feature of any Prager wine.
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
Intense and delicate nose of white peach, Asian pear and spring blossoms, with only a tiny hint of pepper. Ripe and succulent, with more than enough concentration, this is an exceptionally graceful and beautifully balanced gruner veltliner.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Prager's 2021 Ried Achleiten Grüner Veltliner Smaragd is super clear, fresh and stony on the nose, with bright fruit of cooked apples and fine spice. It is compact and powerful on the palate, but also quite saturating and—in the Zalto Universal glass—also distinctive. It might possibly be better from the Burgundy goblet.
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Wine Enthusiast
This wine is intense, with loads of white pepper and spice upfront, paving the way for Bosc pear and white tea accents. Acidity, although powerful, is very well integrated and acts as both the fuel and backbone, giving energy to the overall experience. The finish is tactile and long.
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Wine Spectator
Supple and broad, with fleshy warm apple, honeyed apricot and stone fruit. Packs a firming spine of crushed flint, anise, green herbs and fleur de sel that expertly balance the richness, with toasted sweet spices and smoke weaving through the long finish. A lot of pleasure to unpack and savor.
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.