Once you submit to the inevitable conclusion that Riesling should feature in every wine-drinker’s list of the top two white grape varieties, you see that it excels at two extremes. At the most basic level, it has strong, attractive, undistorted aroma and flavour—if you’re going to bother to drink wine, you may as well have those—and a high refreshment factor. At its soaring height, it touches all the erogenous zones that great wines do. These extremes are abundantly and rewardingly probed in many parts of the world, notably in Germany, Alsace and Australia. What’s Austria got that they don’t have?
The Otherness of Austria Riesling was the title of a trade masterclass I co-hosted at the Austrian Embassy in Canberra last month on behalf of CellarHand, alongside fellow Australian importers Andreas Puhar of Enoteca Sydney and Andrew Wyse of Cardwell Cellars. The theme had a subtle double meaning: first, what was generally true of Austrian Riesling that was not generally true of its rivals? And, second, what was genuinely unique about these wines that would persuade a wine-buyer that they were an unmissable proposition?
A key factor hides within the stats. Across the nation, it accounted for just 4.6% of vines in 2023/4. Contrast that with the dominance of its white overlord, Grüner Veltliner, which was sitting on one-third of the total vineyard area. It’s even put into the shade by Welschriesling, which is not even Riesling (or Welsh) at 6.3%. But Riesling’s underrepresentation in the vineyards of Austria in no way reflects second-class citizen status.
If you dig deeper and head to some of the most geologically and climatically interesting parts of Austria, in and around the Danube Valley, that picture starts to change. In the highly regarded Kamptal and Kremstal regions, Riesling’s share rises to 10-11%. In the most prestigious zone, the Wachau, it jumps to 18.4%. Flip that around, and you have almost 44% of Austrian Riesling growing in these three regions. Sure, that leaves 56% from elsewhere (in fact, almost all of that is within the same generic winegrowing region of Niederrösterreich), but the Wachau, Kamptal and Kremstal set the tone.
That localised favouritism carries huge significance for the buyer. The resilient Riesling vine thrives where others might struggle. Grüner Veltliner, which also shines in some spectacular sites around this section of the Danube, generally prefers a more comfortable life and is happier on the deeper, more fertile, nutrient-rich loess soils. This means Riesling is often handed the meagre, rockier spots where the vine works hard to produce small yields of intensely flavoured fruit.
The true winners in the lottery of vine life are the beneficiaries of a confluence of chance factors, and it’s the combination of these—along with good farming and well-judged cellar work—that makes a wine both stimulating and singular. And, here again, Austrian Riesling is showered with gifts. The Danube Valley around this key area is diverse in its minutiae (we’ll come to that), but there are some big-picture advantages. Geologically and climatically, it’s located at a fascinating meeting place.
Geologically, the bottleneck of the Wachau Valley has made it the recipient of Ice Age glacial deposits from the Alps carried on westerly winds and by the river itself. Hence, the loess, the fine-silt product of far-flung glacial grinding. This has been churned and redistributed among myriad rocky incarnations from the Eastern Alps, the Bohemian Massif, and the lava flows of ancient underwater volcanoes—all of which were smashed, compressed, ground and weathered every which way over the millennia. In the Wachau, you find forms of gneiss (a metamorphic rock with a banded or foliated structure), amphibolite, marble and quartzite. You’ll frequently come across finely pleated Gföhl gneiss (an orthogneiss, i.e. from igneous rocks such as granite or diorite), as well as paragneiss (from sedimentary rock such as shale or sandstone). In neighbouring Kremstal and Kamptal, you’ll find variations on this theme.
Climatically, at this relatively high latitude in Central Europe, you have cool-to-moderate continental conditions, bringing generally warm days and cool nights in the summer. This is generally ideal for ripening grapes while retaining freshness, aided by Riesling’s propensity to hang onto its acidity as the bunches mature. The daytime flow of warm air sucked up the Danube Valley from the Pannonian plain to the east, combined with the heating effect of sun-baked rocky soils and terrace walls, also boosts ripening. The cool evening air flows down from the Bohemian Massif, heightening the nightly cooling effect. In this climate, autumn continues to bring the sunlight without excessive heat, so grapes hanging on the vine are well placed to lap up the light and deepen in flavour without sugars spiking or acids dipping—retaining balance and freshness. Various Graben, natural trenches running towards the Danube, bring side-valley mesoclimate influences, and the varying altitudes and aspects of plots on these slopes provide more variation.
One of our premises for the exploration of Austrian Riesling at the Embassy in Canberra was that the grape is famously frank and faithful in reflecting the place where it grows. The thing about the sites in Austria—and even the regions, because the only uniformity you find in the Wachau, Kremstal and Kamptal is that an insane number of variables influences every patch of vines—is not to get hung up on how specific soils might work. Instead, let’s take a step back and work from this:
Riesling is a grape that shows where it grows
Where it grows in Austria is often ideal for low yields, deep ripeness and balanced structure
Those factors end up tasting and feeling good, while magnifying origin
Origin is extremely specific and complex in these sites, so
Much of Austrian Riesling’s ‘otherness’ is bound up in the delicious, distinctive detail of these wines.
Austrian Riesling is uniformly dry, itself a point of difference with neighbouring Germany’s library of sweetness grades and Alsace’s mercurial approach to residual sugar. These growing conditions mean you can count on plenty of flavour, a certain density to the wines and acidity that is athletic and long, often calmly resolved within the wine. While it is usually ludicrous to assign flavour descriptors to a whole category, it’s uncanny how often juicy white peach and apricot crop up in these wines.
Andreas Wickhoff MW of Weingut Bründlmayer in the Kamptal, whose beautiful Riesling was not, alas, on show at the Embassy tasting, told Vininspo!: “The vast majority of all Rieslings from Austria are dry with a zesty, crunchy acid structure and vibrancy. With the overall topography and the moderately cool climate, we tend to get this beautiful ripe stone fruit character of Marille (a local apricot), shifting— depending on the vintage—towards lime, lemon, yuzu in a cool year to ripe vineyard peach, papaya and tropical fruit in a warm year.”
Andreas also notes a general move in Austria towards turning down the style dials and highlighting specificity, with the band of outliers tending towards overripe and botrytis-affected Riesling shrinking over the last decade or more. “Purity, precision and focus are what most quality producers are targeting,” he told me.
Sometimes—especially in a warming world where we’re told wine-drinkers prefer wines with a cooler profile—there is a tendency to be guided by a search for that style at the expense of complete, confident ripeness and, ultimately, stinting on expression. I’m increasingly of the opinion that (and it’s not an original thought) both underripe and overripe flavours are generic and, by extension, signify that something specific has gone missing.
Emmerich Knoll from Weingut Knoll has always been a staunch believer in the importance of allowing his grapes to hang in the Wachau’s cool autumn, taking advantage of conditions that ripen the tannins and flavours without pushing up alcohols or driving down acids. Where some might look to suppress fruitiness with earlier picks or winery practices that promote a flinty or smoky reductive quality, Emmerich told Vininspo! that he prefers the way Austria leans towards “straighter, elegant wines that are varietal and lush, with more of a fun aspect”. He continued: “The fruitiness is a signature of where the wine is grown, but the expression of site is not strong when the grapes are overripe; they have to be in the centre, not under- or overripe. That’s when the grapes have the perfect chance to show the circumstances of the site. I prefer to make that visible.”
In Austria, where Riesling is often raised in rare and revered environs, you see those circumstances lit up in all their glory, magnifying the otherness of these routinely beautiful wines.
The Wines
The following wines were tasted at the masterclass, apart from the two Domäne Wachau bottlings. Bruck has been included as a perennial favourite of mine, and it is offered as a relatively affordable touchstone—especially for a wine as good as this from such a privileged site. Kellerberg featured at the trade and public tasting in Canberra. Note that the Wachau wines carry the Vinea Wachau designations Federspiel (denoting an elegant, medium-bodied dry wine with up to 12.5% alcohol) and Smaragd (the highest ripeness category, with at least 12.5% alcohol; these days, these wines tend to be extremely fresh, energetic and elegant despite their intensity and power). F.X. Pichler no longer uses these designations because this founding member of the Vinea Wachau chose to withdraw from the group some years ago.
2024 Domäne Wachau Riesling Ried Bruck Federspiel Wachau RRP $49
The wine: The Bruck vineyard is situated at the cooler western gateway to the Wachau Valley in the Spitzer Graben—a side valley leading into the Danube at the town of Spitz. Vines are cultivated on the narrow terraces at elevations of up to 480 metres above sea level. The acidic Spitzer granodiorite gneiss of the Bruck vineyard in the western Wachau represents the counterpart to the Gföhl gneiss in the east.
Tasting: Thoroughly cool notions on the nose—flint, green apple, lime pith, and just-ripe apricot—lead onto a tense palate with just enough juiciness. A sense of rippling, tart juices on river pebbles, finally easing itself to a racy and moreish finish.
2024 Alzinger Riesling Dürnstein Federspiel Wachau RRP $57
The wine: This comes from small vineyard parcels at the foot of the Loibenberg slope. What they share is a strong influence from the Loibenberg and its eroded, weathered gneiss, mixed through with sand, loess and various sediments.
Tasting: A beautifully floral, delicate and precise expression. Relatively light, direct and linear but not unyielding, this skips across the palate with crystalline purity to its tangerine-accented, citric juices, with a touch of fragrant herb and a saline note on the finish. Pretty, disarming Riesling with quiet intensity.
2021 Hirsch Riesling Ried Gaisberg Kamptal Sold out; current vintage (‘23) RRP $88
The wine: The only Kamptal wine here comes from a celebrated southwest-facing vineyard in the southern foothills of the Manhartsberg mountain range. The soil is primarily non-calcareous, siliceous brown earth, sandy with a slight siltiness and a notable grit content. It rests on weathered mica schist bedrock, with calcareous soils occurring only over amphibolite lenses or remnants of loess.
Tasting: Beautiful ripe nose, lemon, mandarin and apricot, ozone and crushed rock. The palate is deep, lush and intense, yet fine and tense; its lacy texture is utterly disarming, finishing with tonic freshness. Sapid, delicious and effortlessly ripe and balanced. I love this wine.
2020 Alzinger Riesling Ried Steinertal Smaragd Wachau RRP $74
The wine: Coming from the east of the valley (the opposite end from Spitz), Steinertal is the first steep vineyard of the wine region. The view also reveals the side-valley character of this vineyard, as suggested by the old name Steingraben (stony trench), which forms an amphitheatre with an open view of the region. underpinned entirely by carbonate-free, acidic Gföhler gneiss. The weathered soils are coated in reddish-brown iron oxides, and vines burrow deep through the cracks. The Steinertal topsoil is sandy, lean and low in humus. There are small traces of limestone beneath, too.
Tasting: An ethereal, elegant impression to start, with spring water, sprigs of herbs, and lime zest building to stone-fruit breadth on a saline palate that is plenty of substance and mineral impact, but then taut and athletic on the long, saline finish.
2023 F.X. Pichler Riesling Ried Klostersatz Wachau RRP $89
The wine: Ried Klostersatz is one of the oldest vineyards in the Wachau, cultivated by the monks of Bavarian and Salzburg monasteries. It has remarkably deep soil composition situated in the Loibner basin, within the curve of the Danube between Dürnstein and Oberloiben. The topsoil, on the other hand, is characterised by fine sand particles and an underlying gravel layer. Altitude 200-208 metres.
Tasting: Lime and almond blossom, ripe peach, basil and peppery rocket notions on the nose. The palate is sleek, juicy and long, stretching out on ripe stone fruits and soothing acids, medium-bodied and athletic with a lovely sense of extract, finishing with wet stone, grapefruit pith and almond paste.
2022 Domäne Wachau Riesling Ried Kellerberg Smaragd Wachau RRP $100
The wine: Kellerberg is the steep mountain vineyard rising above Dürnstein, behind the iconic Kellerschlössel (baroque “cellar castle”) that houses the Domäne Wachau winery and adorns its label. The vines are deeply rooted in light-coloured Gföhler gneiss, composed mainly of feldspar and quartz. Some areas of the vineyard are also covered by sandy loess.
Tasting: A nose evocative of lush, ripe stone fruits with tangerine blossoms, nettle and smoky, crushed rock. For all that ripeness, the palate has tremendous finesse and nerve, very pure and long with those herbal and mineral notes tingling on a finish of great length, composure and freshness.
2020 Malat Riesling Ried Silberbichl Kremstal RRP $120
The wine: The only Kremstal wine here gets its name from the glint of the mica schist in the soil, which catches the evening sun. Located on a broad terrace of the Danube’s ancient valley floor, the subsoil consists of sandy layers of Danube gravel, overlaid by loess and loam containing sparkling mica. The vines are more than 30 years old.
Tasting: With its relatively deep colour and notes of honey and cooked yellow plums, there are signs of development to a ripe-smelling wine, which also shows candied ginger, lemon peel, mint and flint. The first impression on the palate is one of density. and width, but there is gorgeous purity and depth, and a clean, racy mineral acidity here, tautened, too, by a touch of grip, spice and a briny, grapefruity clinch on the finish.
2022 Emmerich Knoll Riesling Ried Schütt Smaragd Wachau RRP $181
The Schütt Vineyard sits beside Kellerberg on the steep, sun-bathed terraces above the Danube near Dürnstein. Its gneiss and mica-schist soils provide excellent drainage and promote deep root penetration. Compared to the terraced locations with Gföhl gneiss, the Schütt soils are sandier and stonier, while also very deep. Altitude 208-225 metres.
Tasting: Complex nose of lime blossoms, chamomile, lavender, orange inflections and beautifully ripe stone fruits. Creamy, lush, seductive on the palate, lithe and energetic, too. A clinging phenolic sensation with saltiness, ginger and orange blossom on an immensely long finish. Quite breathtaking.