2004 Riesling Smaragd Hochrain

I tasted all these wines shortly after the Smaragd wines were bottled in April, and then again in early September, by which point the wines had profited from some bottle maturation. Hirtzberger displayed a great deal of patience in a vintage where nearly all Smaragd wines show botrytis hints of caramel and honey. He believes that the Smaragd wines from 2004 will evolve well, but I suspect that only the best of them will remain in good condition for more than five years or so. The 2004 harvest began on November 10 and ended at the beginning of December, making this the latest harvest ever recorded here. In the famed riesling vineyard Singerriedel, nearly all grapes were botrytis-affected, and this has had a strong influence on the character of the wine.With the harvest team hand-selecting the grapes, and often bringing in only a few kilos per hour, it was possible for Franz Senior and Junior to produce a series of wines that were surprisingly approachable from the very beginning.