Winemaker Notes
The vineyard is located on the slope of the Steinertal. While in the upper part of the influence of the mountain is still clearly felt and gneiss penetrates to the surface, the lower half is increasingly characterized by the level and continuously deeper loam layers. Aromatically, these factors are mainly noticeable through a pronounced spiciness.
Professional Ratings
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Wine Spectator
A rich, smoky Grüner, luscious and creamy up front, but with underlying acidity that pierces its way through, revealing persimmon, vanilla and cardamom notes. Features a really lovely texture, almost velvety, coating the palate, but still remains fresh. Complex and long. Best from 2020 through 2030.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2017 Ried Mühlpoint Grüner Veltliner Smaragd is from the upper part of the vineyard, located at the bottom of the Steinertal. It is harvested roughly 10 days after the Federspiel. It is clear and concentrated on the ripe, intense nose. Round, piquant and elegant on the palate, this is a full-bodied, rich Veltliner with a long, intense, nicely salty but also powerful finish. The wine reveals a stunningly fresh and salty acidity and fills each part of the mouth with salts and ripe fruit. Still nicely bitter due to structuring tannins but also the alcohol level of 14.2%.
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.