2013 Riesling Hochäcker

Martin Nigl was the first Kremstal grower whose wines began to be spoken about across the border in Germany, and soon much farther afield, with the same awe that was then otherwise reserved for the top Wachau vintners and Bründlmayer. The first estate bottling chez Nigl was only undertaken in 1987, with the encouragement of Martin, who was then assisting his father. Yet by the mid-1990s this estate had, under his direction, achieved close to the maximum degree of international renown then accorded any Austrian winery.

Without question, the steep, high-elevation, well-ventilated and perfectly exposed Urgestein slopes that feature conspicuously in his family's acreage have much to do with Nigl’s early and continued high reputation. (Proidl is the only other significant wine grower to share these sorts of slopes along the brook-sized Krems for which the Kremstal is named.) But even when working with gentler loess slopes closer to the city of Krems itself, Nigl achieved a style that was more than anything else what put him on the international map: clear, precise, intricately interactive, buoyant and infectiously juicy. Even the least expensive Grüner Veltliner bottlings were frequently little masterpieces.

The new millennium ushered in many changes. Nigl built an imposing new cellar and attached hotel; he greatly expanded his acreage in anticipation of the third generation of estate-bottling Nigls coming on strong; and nature seemed to be doing her best to interfere with that signature style, resulting in wines that were often weighty, awkwardly botrytis-inflected and conspicuously freighted with alcohol. Nigl maintains to this day that nature deserves all of the blame. “Yes,” he acknowledged, “sugar accumulation can nowadays often get ahead of flavor ripeness, but I hate to pick until I have the latter, which is why I have often had to compromise in recent years.” I was tempted more than once to ask in frustration: “Is there nothing you can do to address this problem?” And I’d still like to know the answer to that question, one which an increasingly large share of the best wine growers all across Europe--including, conspicuously, in regions traditionally dubbed “cool climate”--are asking and actively trying to answer in their vineyards

In the meantime, though, the 2013 vintage has come along to prove Nigl right about this much: Given nature’s cooperation, he is as capable as ever of turning out Rieslings and Grüner Veltliners that dazzle with the old virtues. Since there is so much more steep-slope estate acreage now and so much added know-how under Nigl’s belt, with his father (yes, still) and son working alongside him, not even the 1997 collection here can equal what has been achieved in 2013. And to have reached such a level of excellence with Riesling in this vintage (where, notes Nigl, there was a touch of botrytis in the ripest of what he picked) is truly remarkable. Perhaps it’s partly a function of Nigl’s fidelity to screwcap closures--and indeed, many consumers will welcome this observation--but after retasting nearly all of these 2013s again either over the past six months at my own table or during my Austrian trip this September, I found them scarcely changed since the summer of 2014.

No account of the Nigl estate would be complete without mentioning that not only has Martin Nigl remained true to his early interest in Chardonnay and especially Sauvignon Blanc as well as stayed loyal to the traditional Gelber Muskateller, he has also for nearly two decades cultivated and creatively vinified several red wine grapes, and more recently branched into sparkling wine. Another feature held over from the early days of estate bottling is nobly sweet wine, since not only are certain of Nigl’s sites especially susceptible to botrytis, he also has a corner from which Eiswein can rather regularly be rendered. He is happy to keep me updated from bottle on all of these genres, but I limit my exposure for time’s sake; and in 20 years of visiting and tasting here, I have never been truly wowed by any of them. That having been noted, I was utterly charmed by a recently disgorged Brut de Brut Rosé of Zweigelt about which you can read in this report, which also contains notes on a new Kamptal venture of Nigl’s with enologist Georg Leindl, for whose family name its wines are labeled.