2015 Grüner Veltliner Smaragd Kaiserberg

I tasted with young Georg Högl in a recently built and architecturally striking reception facility, on what was my first visit to this estate in a number of years, though one that left me convinced I need to put the Högls on my annual agenda. (In several recent vintages, they have shown me their wines at the biennial VieVinum exposition, or sent me samples.) Like nearly all of their neighbors in the Spitzer Graben, they suffered severe losses to the three-night-long frost in late April 2016. Overall, the Schön and Bruck sites were down by 60-70%, an economic hardship ameliorated by the extent to which this estate has in recent years incorporated sites along the Danube in Spitz, Weissenkirchen, Dürnstein and Loiben. By the time the vines in Schön and Bruck had budded out a second time, three weeks had elapsed, “but the quantity from what second growth we got was so small,” explained Högl, “that we ended up harvesting more or less at the same time we would expect from any somewhat late growing season.” Picking got going seriously at the beginning of October in Loiben and finished in mid-November, which is by no means unusually late for the Spitzer Graben. “There was one day,” recalled Högl, “when we picked just 1,200 kilograms [1.3 US tons] from a 1.5-hectare [3.7-acre] area.” While bottling of Federspiel was delayed a month, until February, all of the Smaragde were bottled in April, due, said Högl, to there having been so little wine overall, whereas in a more normal year there would be a second round of Smaragd bottlings in June or July. The vintage 2016 collection here makes the best of this growing season’s potential for ripe flavors in combination with animation and relative alcoholic levity. As such, it clearly surpasses the Högl 2015s, several of which I re-tasted alongside the 2016s.

In an encouraging new development, the Högls have become the latest to undertake restoration of steep Spitzer Graben slopes that had long since gone to scrub - in this instance, a potentially prime portion of the Ried Schön. They estimate that the project will take 7-8 years to complete and involve 20 terraces. “My grandmother,” related Georg Högl, “thinks this parcel was last farmed in the 1960s, and says it was known as Höll [hell] because the soil and rock here heated up so much in the summer.” Something to look forward to in the nearer term is fruit from a newly planted section of the Brandstatt vineyard from which the Högls envision a Spitzer Graben Steinfeder. (For some additional details concerning this estate and its vineyards and practices, readers are invited to consult the introduction to my report on its 2013 collection.)

Undoubtedly the best-known grower in the Spitzer Graben, near the Wachau’s western edge, Josef Högl is also known for taking advantage of that sector’s relatively cool conditions to bottle a wide range of Federspiel, although that isn’t to suggest that Högl Smaragd always remains modest in alcohol, let alone demure. Högl assured me that “true Federspiel” was possible in 2015 without having had to pick anything prior to the first of October, even in those sites that he farms in Dürnstein, Loiben, and Weissenkirchen. Wait ... did I write “cool”? Högl informs me that on several summer 2015 days it reached 40°C [104°F] in the air above his Bruck vines! He and I tasted most recently at the 2016 VieVinum, where circumstances permitted him to present nearly but not quite all of his vintage 2015 collection. Quite a few wines I tasted were underwhelming, but the wonderful exceptions were happily more numerous than had been the case from vintage 2013. (I did not taste any of his 2014s.) With a couple of exceptions, the Högl wines are raised in tank and bottled in spring. (For details concerning this new estate’s vineyards and practices, readers are invited to consult the introduction to my report on its 2013 collection.)