HM Lang

Markus Lang has completed his small but impressive cellar in a former air-raid shelter tunneled under the Steiner Schreck vineyard. Among its impressive details are a motorless elevator and a system of vents that generate a continuous, gentle airflow through the length of the facility. A press of Lang’s own design, constructed of carbon fiber but modeled on the traditional Baumpresse with its tree-trunk cross piece, will be installed above. Extended élevage in cask will be the norm here, though direct wood influence will diminish once Lang has built up the requisite collection of barrels. The Lang viticultural regimen is biodynamic, and there are already signs of an intensive though experimental implementation of those principles. Tasted in June 2016, the Langs’ 2015 wines – which will include a second Grüner Veltliner raised entirely in tank – were highly impressive. They were picked in September and are by no means vintage-typical in their vivacity, crystalline clarity and under-12-percent-alcohol levity. But the two flagship bottlings were not due to be assembled until shortly before an autumn 2016 bottling, nor released until the spring of 2017, so I refrain for now from formally reviewing them. The 2014 Grüner Veltliner Schreck, bottled in October 2015, continues, as it did in cask, to display significant scents of barrel resin and a corresponding bit of finishing dryness, prompting the Langs to delay release, so I’ll also delay my published assessment of that wine. Given the relatively unorthodox regimen of vinification and aging into which this estate is settling, not to mention that 2012 was its first vintage, my prognoses of bottle maturation must be viewed as highly speculative. (For details concerning this estate’s vineyards and its evolving practices, readers are advised to consult an extended introduction to the tasting notes that accompanied my report focused on vintage 2013. Astute readers will note that I have removed the punctuation marks from this estate’s name to reflect its official registration as “HM Lang.” The labels, however, are now inscribed “Heidelinde & Markus Lang.”)