Austrian Riesling & Grüner Veltliner: Up to the Challenges of 2016

BY DAVID SCHILDKNECHT | OCTOBER 4, 2018

Part One: Kremstal, Traisental, Wagram, Wien

A growing season that presented enormous challenges also harbored opportunities, on which Austria’s top practitioners of Grüner Veltliner and Riesling capitalized to make sleek, invitingly fragrant wines of intricacy, charm and alcoholic moderation. The best are often more exciting than their 2015 counterparts.

Lower Austria was significantly affected by Europe’s multi-day deep freeze at the end of April, 2016, which for some estates already rendered anything approaching a normal-sized crop impossible. Seemingly never-ending rain in spring and early summer occasioned unprecedented pressure from peronospora (downy mildew) in many sectors. This nearly omnipresent feature of vintage 2016 in Northern Europe wreaked selective havoc on the flowering, thereby further reducing yields. The effects of localized summer hail can’t be omitted.

Stein's stony terraced vineyards - here, Hund and Grillenparz in foreground; Gaisberg and Pfaffenberg in background, as seen from Schreck - are experiencing a renaissance; Fifteen years ago, only the Knolls and Salomons showcased their potential; today, no lover of Grüner Veltliner or Riesling should overlook Harmwein, H.-M. Lang, Stadt Krems, Lesehof Stagård or Rainer Wess

But considering the nearly catastrophic shortfalls experienced in other parts of their country, Lower Austria’s Grüner Veltliner and Riesling growers were lucky, with some even managing to enjoy average yields. Moreover, in late July, the weather turned – albeit less dramatically than in Germany’s Riesling-growing regions. And “less dramatic” actually meant more favorably. Lower Austria, while warm, dry and sun-drenched from late July through late September, experienced somewhat less late-summer drought stress and sunburn than did German Riesling regions. A disadvantage vis-à-vis Germany was additional autumn precipitation, especially in mid-October. Still, botrytis seldom proved problematic thanks to chilly post-September temperatures. For the most part growers were able to take unhurried advantage of clear, cool conditions, although low yields along with precisely that cooperative weather meant many were finished harvesting well before October’s end.

A Varied Landscape

It is easy – and usually not all that misleading – to think of the Wachau, Kremstal, Kamptal, Traisental and Wagram as a single “Krems Area” growing region. All of these regions are characterized by a consistent daily alternation of warm air from the Pannonian Plain with cool breezes from pre-Alpine forests. Together, these flow up and down the Danube, with conditions being warmer, generally speaking, the farther east one travels. What’s more, the soils of all but the Traisental are dominated by some combination of loess (ancient glacial dust) and “primordial rock” (collectively referred to by the locals as Urgestein) of volcanic or metamorphic origin, with loess becoming increasingly dominant as one moves east from Krems and Langenlois. (The western Weinviertel and the vineyards of Vienna are also typically either loess- or Urgestein-based, but are climatically quite distinct.)