2013 Riesling Pfennigberg

Franz Proidl farms primarily steep Urgestein terraces that line the diminutive Krems around Senftenberg, from which his grandfather already estate-bottled. In the case of the steep granite and gneiss Ehrenfels vineyard (which rises behind Nigl’s winery), Proidl is personally responsible for its continued existence. Beginning in 1988, he began buying up its acreage, restoring its stone terraces, and replanting a once-prestigious site that had been completely abandoned after the Second World War. (Other terraces further upstream had already been abandoned in the wake of Phylloxera and await a Prince Charming.)

Proidl, whose wry sense of humor is justly famous among Austrian wine growers and critics, likes to say that the periodic floods to which his cellar and house are subjected help sweep away any nostalgia for dusty tradition, and the motto emblazoned outside his winery reads: “Give the Wine its Freedom.” He has long taken that as a license for fearless experimentation, whether this involves residual sugar, botrytis, high alcohol, malolactic transformation (by now a regular occurrence here), extremely late harvesting, extreme élevage or new wood. Sometimes the results are impressive; sometimes striking but unconvincing or downright awkward. (That was the case with no fewer than five variations on Gewurztraminer very young vines yellow Traminer that I tasted from cask or bottle during my 2014 visit, several of which I retasted with similar results this September. And “awkward” is also, unfortunately, as charitable as I can be to son Patrick Proidl’s wooded early experiments, labeled “Generation X.”) Older Proidl wines I’ve tasted over the years, including a recent 2010 Ehrenfels Grüner Veltliner from magnum, have tended toward relatively rapid development.

Proidl’s musts have a habit of fermenting very slowly, sometimes not finishing before summer, after which he is likely to keep the wines on their lees yet longer. (So, for example, many of the 2014s I’ll describe in my next report had either not yet or only just been bottled when I tasted them this September.) Proidl dealt with high 2013 acidity (and in his vineyards it was often extremely high) through selectively allowing wines to go through malo, an approach that in some instances led to awkward milkiness and diffuseness, evident even after they had been in bottle for nine or more months. Yet he echoed in spades the general enthusiasm for this vintage’s September rain, noting that the Senftenberg terraces are especially prone to heat and drought and that his vines were nearly at their limit of tolerance in August 2013, even allowing for periodic irrigation. “Even an hour after a heavy rain,” he notes, “you can already drive a tractor along the Ehrenfels terraces; that’s how quickly they drain.”

Born in 1992, Patrick Proidl is already working full-time at the family estate. “This is where I feel at home,” he says. He even has his own wine, the Generation X, which he offers in both Riesling and Grüner Veltliner. During our tasting, his father Franz was obviously more than happy to let his son speak first. Given how vertiginous the slopes here can be, I'm sure that he is equally happy to have a son willing to continue in his footsteps rather than seek an easier job in Vienna.

Most of the estate’s vineyards are found in the upper stretches of the Krems Valley, where the granite and slate slopes gradually give way at the top to the woods of Bohemia. Father Franz has spent years reclaiming numerous old sites from the scrub brush and outcroppings that took hold when vineyards were abandoned as other producers thought they were too steep to cultivate. Even today, many shake their heads when they see the Proidls' vines clinging to the rocks of Ehrenfels, Pfeningberg and Hochäcker.

As they harvest late, love acidity and adore wild yeasts, the fermentations can last as long as six months here. “We just let the wines make themselves,” Patrick told me. Not surprisingly, they often only bottle after their neighbors’ wines are sold out. While theirs are generally dry, they have no issue with residual sugar and even make one Riesling that is more like an off-dry Auslese from the Rheingau that they calls Proidl Spricht Deutsch. “I don’t want to see botrytis in my Grüner Veltliner,” says father Franz, “but it can be a welcome component in Riesling,” as the 2012 Trockenbeerenauslese amply proves.

While Patrick thinks the Grüner Veltliners were a tad better in 2013, he is not quite so certain about 2012. “Both varieties did well,” he explained, “but perhaps the Rieslings will mature more gracefully.” With a total production of only 80,000 bottles that are sold out quickly, these are wines that you’ll need to seek out and lay down in your own cellars if you want to follow their evolution.