Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Hirsch's 2014 Riesling Heiligenstein 1ÖTW is a classic. Intense and herbal on the nose, this wine has bright and concentrated fruit aromas (pineapples), along with dusty stone flavors. This medium-bodied yet intense and juicy wine is piquant, concentrated and perfectly balanced, displaying lemon flavors, a thrilling minerality and a salivating finish with grip and tension. Great aging potential.
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Wine Enthusiast
Flinty overtones signal the freshness of the wine which has yet to show its true colors. But the tight, taught, focused and zesty palate promises lots of refreshment. There is a generosity here between zest and pepper, with concentrated pear and citrus. Superclean finish.
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.
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.