2013 Riesling Bruck

Peter Veyder-Malberg had a long and varied international career in wine, including a lengthy stint as a viticultural consultant inside Austria, before founding his own winery in 2008. His dominant subject matter there is old vines, organically dry-farmed on ancient terraces in neglected Wachau sites. In the case of the 400-meter-high Brandstatt vineyard, near his home base along the Spitzerbach, Malberg has completely rebuilt terraces and planted acreage that had gone to scrub, an ongoing and already six-year project shared with his friend Martin Muthenthaler (also profiled in this report).

Even in his cool, high-elevation Spitzer Graben sites, Malberg harvests earlier than nearly any other Wachau grower, retaining what he describes as desirable “freshness and crunch,” not to mention obtaining clarity and levity, yet without sacrificing ripeness of flavor. This is surely in part thanks to savvy canopy management and severe pruning for low yields, but the genetics of his vines probably also play a role.

Malberg doesn’t believe in stylistic designations like Federspiel and Smaragd, bottling just one wine from each of his best small vineyard holdings--and at the level of must weight and finished alcohol he deems maximally expressive and suited to its site and vintage. The typical winery regimen includes day-long skin contact, slow pressing, spontaneous fermentation, low sulfur and leisurely élevage, which now that Malberg has had chance to build his own cellar from scratch will for some wines extend through summer. As what he calls “part of my search for Wachau tradition,” Malberg had already determined in the course of rebuilding the aforementioned Brandstatt that its vinous fruits would be handled in the manner it would have been 60 or more years ago. Accordingly, those grapes were crushed, given extended skin contact, and aged in large acacia casks for 18 months, which means among other things that anyone hoping to be able to compare the character of wine from this site with that of other vineyards in the area as rendered chez Veyder-Malberg will be frustrated by their utter stylistic disparity. “But I think that if I vinified it like Bruck it would taste a lot like Bruck,” suggests the author of this new vinous homage to antiquity.

Malberg’s typically copious photographic documentation confirms that the 2013 millerandage rendered Grüner Veltliner grapes in his vineyards pea-sized. He began picking already on September 11, undeterred by the vintage’s high acidity, but eventually extended the harvest into early November, late by estate standards. “It was so cool,” remarked Malberg, “that the fruit remained absolutely stable on the vine. Colleagues were calling me,” he added, “and asking ‘what are we going to do about the Riesling, it’s so sour?!’ and I said ‘Well I’m happy about it’.” That said, Malberg allowed some of his crop slightly longer than usual skin contact, and considerable tartrate precipitation further ameliorated acidity. The wines all ended up still analytically very high in acidity, bright and nervy, yet they’re never tart let alone screechy.

Malberg’s contrarian streak will no doubt have emerged from the above account, and that now extends to his having decided that he can only continue sharing his wines and opinions with me or any other journalist if his reviewer refrains from rating the wines with point scores. Given the value I place on our regular in-depth discussion of more than just his wines, I acquiesce to this demand, trusting that my readers will have no difficulty comprehending my tasting notes and translating them into consumer action.