Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Vinous
The 2023 Grüner Veltliner Steinertal Smaragd is picked on this terraced gneiss site, cooled by cold Waldviertel air that is channeled through gullies. Spicy ferns are open and enticing on the nose. A lovely frisson of white pepper is carried on lemony juiciness. The palate has the customary cut, the usual precision and exquisite tension. This is masterful, yet it has the mellower creaminess of 2023 without sacrificing its essential, cool character. The mid-palate concentrates pepper and yeast. Great work. (Bone-dry)
Range: 95-97 -
James Suckling
This brilliant and concentrated Wachau gruner veltliner has a wealth of green bean, summer vegetable and garden herb aromas that I could study for hours. Super straight on the medium-bodied palate, with enormous mineral freshness driving the super-long finish. Long aging potential.
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Wine Spectator
A complex white, with great range to its savory notes, filled in with ripe fruit. The creamy roundness is expertly reined in with crunchy mineral accents and juicy acidity. Green melon and apple details are washed in brine as green herb oil elements -- thyme, oregano, marjoram -- glide through. Delicious. Drink now through 2032. 40 cases imported.
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.