Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Wine Enthusiast
Ripe Amalfi lemon and the savory peel of still-green Seville oranges make for a heady alluring flavor combination. The same notions also beguile on the palate where they become even more intense. All of this is delivered in a powerful but compact parcel of exquisite cleanliness. This encapsulates the Austrian virtue of precise pleasure perfectly.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2015 Ried Gaisberg 1ÖTW shows an intense and well-concentrated nose of ripe (and overripe?) Riesling berries and stewed stone fruits. On the palate this is a lush and aromatic but pure and very elegant Gaisberg whose richness and mango fruit is well structured and fresh. The long and kicking finish is intensely fruity but also stimulatingly piquant and salty.
Rating: 92+
Riesling possesses a remarkable ability to reflect the character of wherever it is grown while still maintaining its identity. A regal variety of incredible purity and precision, this versatile grape can be just as enjoyable dry or sweet, young or old, still or sparkling and can age longer than nearly any other white variety. Somm Secret—Given how difficult it is to discern the level of sweetness in a Riesling from the label, here are some clues to find the dry ones. First, look for the world “trocken.” (“Halbtrocken” or “feinherb” mean off-dry.) Also a higher abv usually indicates a drier Riesling.
Climbing north and slightly east of the Kremstal region, Kamptal has very little vineyard area bordering the Danube River (unlike Wachau and Kremstal, whose vineyards run along it). The region takes its name from the river called Kamp, which traverses it north and south. Kamptal’s densely planted vineyards represent eight percent of Austria’s total.
The area experiences wide diurnal temperature variations like the Wachau but with less rain and more frost. Its vast geologic diversity makes it suitable for various experimentations with other varieties besides Grüner Veltliner and Riesling, such as Chardonnay, Pinot Blanc (Weissburgunder), Sauvignon Blanc, Pinot Noir, St. Laurent and Zweigelt.
But the region is probably most noted for the beautiful and expansive terraced Heiligenstein, arguably one of the world’s top Riesling sites, as well as some of Austria’s most extraordinary Grüner Veltliner vineyards. Kamptal’s soils, which are mostly loess and sand with some gravel and rocks, make it suitable for Grüner Veltliner, so much so that actually half of the zone is planted to that grape.