2013 Riesling Smaragd Hochrain

Franz Hirtzberger, longtime chairman of the Vinea Wachau growers’ association, has, like his father and founding member of that organization (another Franz), played an outsized role in elevating the Wachau to its current international prestige. In the process, he also elevated his own wines to cult status, but certainly not through powerful public relations let alone glitz: until two years ago, visitors had the choice of tasting in the retail stock room or a second floor parlor adjacent to the Hirtzbergers' living quarters. Now there is a small, starkly simple but impressive tasting room in what for nearly three centuries served as the estate’s pressoir.

Hirtzberger’s approach has always involved a tolerance for botrytis in the search for ripeness and complexity, and it is, unsurprisingly, the most opulent Smaragd wines of this estate that have garnered greatest renown. But the two Hirtzberger Federspiel bottlings (and even their Grüner Veltliner Steinfeder, when one can get hold of a rare bottle) are models of balance, complexity and ageability. The traditional diversity of varieties at this address and the success scored with all of them are noteworthy, even though understandably just a single bottling is devoted to each grape variety other than Riesling and Grüner Veltliner. Early signs suggest that with the recent assumption of major responsibility by son Franz Junior (34) there will be a tempering of tradition in ways familiar from several other top Wachau estates, namely toward greater precision and vivacity with lower alcohol, though, to be sure, vintages 2013 and 2014 tended in that direction by their nature. The recent expansion of acreage into the Kirchweg, in the adjacent hamlet of St. Michael, is highly promising. But that is hardly the only new Hirtzberger project east of their home base in Spitz. Younger son Matthias is taking over an entire sister estate that has resulted from the Hirtzbergers’ purchase of Wösendorf’s Florianihof; I will soon report on his inaugural 2014 vintage.

The Hirtzbergers were surprised, given the personality of their 2013s, to discover that most of the Smaragds had neared or reached 14% alcohol, because in most instances they seem delightfully lower. “But of course,” noted Franz Hirtzberger Junior, “we picked based not on must weight but on flavor, for which we had to wait.” Having said that, he allowed that there were some exceptions where the potential existed for botrytis to become too big a player. “We did some analysis,” he related, “and found that the botrytis share of the 2013 harvest in any given wine was only between one and three percent. We didn’t let the young wines sit very long on their lees, though,” he added, an approach he felt would be conducive to clarity of flavor. Certain Riesling musts with acid levels well over ten grams per liter were lightly de-acidified using calcium carbonate, but the finished effects are both ultra-bright and highly expressive.

As Franz Hirtzberger Junior's younger brother Mathias has now returned to the estate, the family is engaged in starting a second winery in Wösendorf that will be called Weinhof Meisterei. Mathias, who was born in 1986, studied banking after earning his enological degree, but feels more at home in the world of wine than of financial investments. Having inherited vineyards through both his mother and his relative Anton Hirtzberger, he has already purchased, with the help of his father, the house in which the Restaurant Florianhof is currently located and he plans to crush his first vintage there this fall. In the beginning, the two estates will work together, but they plan a clear split a few years down the road.

While I have concentrated on the 2013s and various older vintages in my notes, I did taste a few 2014s from cask with the family during my visit in February. While the '14s appear to be much better than their reputation, quality came at a price. Not only is volume down, but only 20% of the harvest will be marketed as Smaragd, compared to as much as two-thirds in a better year.

Although this estate is based in Spitz at the cooler, western end of the Wachau, Hirtzberger nonetheless tends to prune for somewhat larger crops so that the grapes do not ripen too quickly, which allows him to harvest as late as possible, often well into November. It is not about alcohol but phenolic ripeness. Without any doubt, the Hirtzberger Smaragds are rich, dense and opulent. Although they might appear to be too much of a good thing in their youth, they age extremely well, as all of my ten-years-after tastings have proven. Anyone who drinks these wines in their youth is throwing money out the window.