2013 Weissburgunder Maximum

A decade ago, Ludwig Hiedler, who since taking control of his family’s estate in 1980 has prided himself on his experimental nature and highly distinctive vinous results, undertook a fundamental rethinking of his cellar principles. How many chemical and mechanical accretions of modernity could he strip away, he wondered. The regimen he arrived at included spontaneous, slow fermentations, typically accompanied by malolactic transformation, and extended lees contact before going to bottle after anywhere from 6 to 18 months, but inevitably late by prevailing Austrian standards. Concurrently, Hiedler worked his way ever closer to organic viticultural practices, and treated botrytis with relative lenience. In consequence of these new millennial developments, he can be proud of wines that are more distinctive than ever, though tasters who place particular emphasis on clarity, brightness and squeaky cleanness may find Hiedler’s wines too fat, enveloping or quirky. Estate acreage has expanded in interesting and generally promising ways, but Hiedler has not relinquished his commitment to wines from grape varieties other than Riesling and Grüner Veltliner--on the contrary. Pinot Blanc in particular has a distinguished tradition in Hiedler’s hands. Somehow it had eluded me until recently that his choice of stainless steel for Riesling vinification and maturation is not a matter of stylistic preference. “I simply don’t have large enough volumes to utilize the traditional acacia casks that I employ with many of my Grüner Veltliners,” he explained.

Several of Hiedler’s vineyards were hard-hit by the June 2013 hail, but he had reason to be more than satisfied with those instances where only a second crop could be ripened (as witness my tasting note on this year’s Steinhaus Riesling!) since he had no difficulty postponing harvesting those sites. The poor flowering of Grüner Veltliner, he explains, “was very site-specific and came down to just a matter of one or two days difference. Thal and Spiegel were severely hit by millerandage, whereas Kittmannsberg fared much better.” Yet the Kittmannsberg is the most aggressively concentrated. Hiedler pulled out early infections, but tolerated low levels of eventual botrytis in Pinot Blanc and Riesling where he considered it dry and fine enough to add character to the resulting wines. Hiedler’s Grüner Veltliners all underwent malolactic transformation in this vintage, while only portions of certain Rieslings did. The Rieslings range from five to eight grams of residual sugar, which is unusually high by estate--or indeed regional--standards but suits the wines well.