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.
Its freshness and savoriness make it ideal with high-integrity ingredients such as seared white fish or sautéed spring vegetables. Grüner Veltliner is a classic accompaniment to Wiener Schnitzel.
Professional Ratings
-
Wine Enthusiast
The elegant frame of this white is decorated with floral aromas and flavors, while the core features an orchard and stone fruit mix. It has almost a slight fizz at the beginning, which dissipates with some air, but the liveliness and crunch remain.
-
Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2020 Ried Hinter der Burg Grüner Veltliner Federspiel is from 66-year-old vines cultivated on gravel topped by a large dark earth layer. Very clear and intensely fruity on the elegant and spicy, reductive styled nose, this is a medium-bodied, round and juicy Veltliner with persistently juicy fruit and fine mineral grip on the palate and with a piquant and salty finish.
-
Wine & Spirits
Bottled under screwcap, this is lean and refreshing, a true Federspiel in weight, with wildflower scents and crisp golden-apple flavors.
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.