2021 Riesling Heiligenstein Alte Reben

The Bründlmayer family has been farming in the region since at least the 16th century. The estate in Langenlois, formerly a mixed farm, specialized relatively early in wine, namely in 1947, when Willi Bründlmayer Sr. took over the estate. At the time, the area was still under Soviet occupation, and the family feared the confiscation of what, then, was more valuable arable land. This prompted the purchase of terraced hillside vineyards, then undervalued, explaining the estate’s substantial holdings of around a third of the Heiligenstein site. Willi Bründlmayer Sr. established the estate as a quality player and won numerous accolades from the 1950s onwards. In 1980, Willi Bründlmayer Jr., a graduate of viticulture, oenology, and business, took over. He spent time with Hubert Lamy in Burgundy and returned to Langenlois with the idea of making wine in smaller barrels with bâtonnage, making his Grüner Veltliner in this Burgundian style for the first time in 1986. His wines, including Chardonnay, started to win international plaudits at the same time as the Austrian wine scandal unfolded, but he managed to cement his international standing. Today, the estate is run by Willi and his wife, Edwige Bründlmayer, alongside Andreas Wickhoff MW and Thomas Klinger. They farm 94 hectares, certified organic. The varietal split is 40% Grüner Veltliner, 20% Riesling, 30% Chardonnay, Pinot Blanc, Pinot Gris and Pinot Noir and the remaining 10% Zweigelt, Muskateller, Sankt Laurent, Merlot and Cabernet Franc. With the white wines, apart from Chardonnay, the only skin contact that occurs is briefly in the press. Press fractions are kept separately, and pressing is very gentle, with the maximum juice extracted set at 68% of fruit weight to preserve acidity and keep pH levels low. The juice is sedimented overnight and fermented in both stainless steel and various various-sized barrels. Malolactic conversion is generally avoided. Readers should note that the 2021 vintage of Riesling Heiligenstein was the last (to date) where the lyra- and guyot-trained vines were vinified and bottled separately. The 2022 vintage is the first where they were co-harvested and co-fermented. This may change again in the future should there be a discernable difference in the fruit. But this estate is now just as much an address for fine Pinot Noir—which has been made here as a single-site wine since the 1950s—and Sekt, which has been made since 1989, as it is for Grüner Veltliner and Riesling. Wickhoff notes that 2022 brought freshness to the wines, but that they had hoped for more ripeness in a summer that was warm but not hot, especially in Grüner Veltliner. He also notes that the harvest was initially punctuated by rain. The 2022 harvest commenced on 7 September for Sekt base and concluded on 26 October. During my visit, I tasted a selection of current releases of both white and red wines, spanning the 2018-2022 vintages.