Winemaker Notes
Loibenberg is known for its rich, bold and elegant wines. The Grüner Veltliner reveals itself with a full body, juicy and lingering aftertaste, over nuances of mineral-like, smoky, and tobacco-like characters. The Riesling is a dense and full-bodied, with noteworthy mineral and stone-like notes, a fruity texture of tropical fruits over peach and apricot flavors.
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
This has a wonderful nose of leaf tobacco and dried herbs, but also fine mirabelle fruit and just a suggestion of exotic fruit in the background. Ripe, but not a jot overripe on the generous medium-bodied palate, this confidently walks the tightrope between tartness and opulence, the balance of fruit, restrained creaminess and animating acidity spot on.
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Wine Spectator
An impressively harmonious Gruner, with zesty fresh lemon, persimmon and aloe flavors expertly woven with smoke, spice and chopped chive notes. Reveals depth and complexity, with white mocha and buttercream hints adding to the richness, while succulent acidity draws out the salty, well-defined finish. This is absolutely delicious and intensely drinkable now -- with lots of aging potential, too. Drink now through 2035. 30 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.