Weinberghof Fritsch
My first two winery visits to the Wagram in the late 1990s were solely to the ever-amicable Karl Fritsch, who was then widely considered the region’s top performer, and at the time was less celebrated for his whites than for his diverse reds, which indeed remain interesting and satisfying. (Even today, only one-third of the Fritsches’ acreage is in Grüner Veltliner, unusually little by regional standards.) Son Karl Junior has without question perpetuated and refined the quality at this estate, and since 2006 has brought it under a biodynamic regimen. The Fritsch line-up has recently been expanded to include a second blended cuvée of Grüner Veltliner as well as their fourth single-site Veltliner. Bernard Moritz has come on board as partner to handle the business side of things.
A lot of other talents have emerged in this neighborhood, but that hardly justifies my having been away from this estate for quite some years, because the wines are more impressive than ever. “I like to push the Grüner Veltliner ripening into the cool nights of October,” noted Fritsch, “but lately it hasn’t always worked out that way.” Fortunately, in 2013 it did. What has not, alas, worked out well in recent years here, nor for other growers in Fritsch’s neighborhood, are yields. The 2012s were alarmingly reduced by frost and the 2013s by millerandage; 2014 required that vintage’s defining meticulous selection to avoid rot; and the calamitous hail of 2015 was so extreme that in some vineyards the wooden stakes were pitted, to say nothing of the vines themselves. (Amazingly, a significant second crop managed to ripen, though that’s a story for a report next year.)
From 2013: A Great Vintage for Austrian Riesling and Grüner Veltliner (Nov 2015) by David Schildknecht
2013 Grüner Veltliner Windspiel
Release Price: $12
Color: White
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2013 Grüner Veltliner Donaulöss
Release Price: $14
Color: White
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2013 Grüner Veltliner Wagram
Release Price: $18
Color: White
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2013 Grüner Veltliner Steinberg
Release Price: $18
Color: White
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2013 Grüner Veltliner Schlossberg
Release Price: $28
Color: White
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2013 Grüner Veltliner Mordthal
Release Price: $25
Color: White
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2013 Riesling Wagram
Release Price: $18
Color: White
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2013 Pinot Noir Exlberg
Color: Red
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2012 Pinot Noir P
Release Price: $49
Color: Red
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