2013 Riesling Smaragd Achleiten

Over the course of the 1990s, Toni Bodenstein elevated the stature of his father-in-law Franz Prager’s estate to international notoriety with wines that consistently continue to be among the most complex, intriguing and subtle of any of the world’s Rieslings or Grüner Veltliners. The scientifically trained Bodenstein’s observations and hypotheses regarding the connections between geology and viticulture are as insightful and thought-through as any I have heard, but he is also a font of historical information that, as with his long-standing role as mayor of Weissenkirchen, belies his having married into the Wachau as an outsider.

The estate’s acreage has been greatly expanded and in some instances reworked in the pursuit of vinous excellence. Bodenstein elected in 1990 to replant, with a mindbogglingly diverse range of Riesling clones and selections, a site so high in altitude it had been deemed suitable solely for ripening Müller-Thurgau. In the event, the resulting “Riesling Wachstum Bodenstein,” doubtless aided by a changing climate, proved entirely worthy to set alongside this estate’s by then already celebrated bottlings from Steinriegl, Klaus and Achleiten. And as if that degree of genetic diversity were not enough, the Grüner Veltliner Wachstum Bodenstein, in a portion of the Achleiten reclaimed from scrub in 2002, involved more than 120 different clones and selections planted to single-post training. Providing the inspiration for a return to that time-honored but by now largely vanished approach was a collection of ancient vines in another section of Achleiten that Bodenstein now separately vinifies under the name of the aforementioned training method, Stockkultur (what the French call planting en échalas). With all of his talents and projects, it’s a bit of a shame that Bodenstein seems to have given up on picking the occasional Trockenbeerenauslese, because what few he bottled during a number of years of experimentation were as exciting as any nobly sweet wines ever rendered in the greater Krems area.

The 2013 harvest began in the second week of October and finished in the first week of November. Bodenstein reported minor outbreaks of botrytis here and there among the Riesling vines, but nothing significant. The Smaragds finished up between 13% and 13.5% in alcohol, even with all having gone below three grams of residual sugar. Bodenstein, as I noted in my general introduction to this report, places significance in terms of youthful knittedness as well as aging potential on the almost freakishly high levels of dry extract found in his 2013s: in the low-30s of grams per liter for Grüner Veltliner where normally they are in the mid-20s. But there is without doubt a magic to the best of this collection that no analysis will ever be able to capture or explain. (The Grüner Veltliner crop was so small that Bodenstein could not locate for me—and subsequent searches of the markets were unsuccessful in turning up—a sample of his 2013 Grüner Veltliner from the Weitenberg. For the same reasons, I did not taste the corresponding Liebenberg post-bottling.)

Although we were tasting the 2013s, Toni Bodenstein began our conversation with a few words about the 2014 vintage, saying that his father-in-law, who has done every harvest since 1953, has never seen such a difficult year. “Two thousand thirteen, on the other hand, was excellent,” he added, with high levels of extract that will guarantee the wines a long life. "Every year is so different. Anyone making wine by recipe is lost."

For many collectors, this estate is best known for its Rieslings, which once represented almost three-quarters of its production. “We are in the upper terraces of the hillside,” he noted, “where Grüner Veltliner will not survive without irrigation.” As the estate has grown to its current 17 hectares of vineyards, the predominance of Riesling has diminished but still represents half of its yearly output. While the Grüner Veltliners can also be fabulous, I must admit to a weak spot for these Rieslings, which are not only pure expressions of the variety reflecting the character of each individual site, but also just plain invigorating to drink.