2015 Grüner Veltliner

Fred Loimer suffered significant losses from the April 2016 frost and battled peronospora into the summer. But the fruit that made it to the finish line turned out very much to his satisfaction, with health and acidity that rendered unproblematic Loimer’s preferred regimen of pre-fermentative skin contact (12-24 hours for the single-vineyard bottlings), and delivered ripe flavors at modest potential alcohol. I remarked on Loimer’s vintage 2015 collection as representing something of a comeback after a relatively weak group of 2016s, but – especially considering the aggregate performance of both Riesling and Grüner Veltliner – 2016 here has turned out even more successfully than 2015. In several instances, Loimer included a share of intact berries in the primary fermentations, an increasingly frequent approach among Austrian growers and one that I am coming to associate with positive results. Save for the generic bottlings – only certain lots of which were inoculated – all of the wines reviewed below fermented spontaneously. As has been his practice now for several vintages, Loimer bottled his site-specific wines only beginning in late summer. I have allowed my tasting notes on those wines to be influenced by impressions garnered both before and after bottling, though naturally with emphasis on how the wines showed from bottle. (For details concerning Loimer’s Kamptal estate’s vineyards, practices and recent history, readers are invited to consult the extended introduction to my report on its 2013s. Note that in keeping with the geographical parameters of this report, I have not published notes on any of Loimer’s wines from the Thermenregion – which until recently were bottled under the Schellmann label but now appear under the same label as do Loimer’s wines from the Kamptal. I’ll review some of Loimer’s skin-fermented “orange” wines as well as his Pinot Noirs from vintage 2016 in my next report. Notes on their 2015 counterparts can be found in my previous report.)