2014 Riesling Smaragd Kellerberg

From an already ungenerous 2014 crop, this illustrious co-op restricted the volume it bottled under the Domäne Wachau label to little more than half of a normal year’s production. The resulting wines eloquently testify to the stringent standards that have long prevailed here, but even measured against those standards, not to mention the challenges of this vintage, the 2014s here represent an amazing achievement and reveal this co-op at the top of their game. Intriguingly, many of the wines I tasted from tank or cask in June 2015 were even clearer and more expressive when re-tasted in September, only a month or so after bottling. In keeping with very modest prevailing must weights as well as the vivacious character of 2014 raw materials, fewer Smaragd bottlings than usual were issued, but it is these that truly excel, the Rieslings quite remarkably so given what I have come to expect from 2014. As usual (despite my luxury of two tasting sessions) I did not audition quite all of this establishment’s single-vineyard Riesling and Grüner Veltliner offerings of the vintage, and sampled only a few of their numerous bottlings from other grape varieties. Incidentally, the latest in a series of Amphora-raised Rieslings that goes back to at least 2010 was among just three 2014s (all Rieslings, none vineyard-specific) that did not convince me, its prominent phenolics linked to a rather drying back-end.