2015 Franz Hirtzberger Riesling Singerriedel Smaragd

Franz Hirtzberger

Austria / Wachau / Franz Hirtzberger

One of the best vineyards in the Wachau valley, the Singerriedel rises steeply right behind Weingut Hirtzberger. We pay a very special attention to Singerriedel, and have beeen rebuilding the stone terraces here already for 20 years. The reason for our great efforts is the extreme minerality of the soil, comprising gneiss, mica, schist and other primary rocks. This unique terroir provides us with the foundation for our greatest Riesling Smaragd.

October, 2016

James Suckling

jamessuckling.com

100 points

An aromatic masterpiece with fine lemon and lime pith, grapefruit and more ripe white nectarines and peaches. This has a lot of sweet aromatics. It's salty and smooth, elegant, precise and shows a deeply rich palate with great balance and power. It's long and super concentrated, and acidity has the final say. Perfect ripeness. Thrilling to drink now, but wait for 5+ years for this to reach perfection.

June, 2016

Stephan Reinhardt

Wine Advocate

95 points

Great finesse and purity on the nose, herbal flavors, crushed (gneiss) stones and ripe white fruits and a great precision – that's how the 2015 Riesling Smaragd Spitzer Singerriedel starts on the nose. Highly elegant and round on the palate, this is a Riesling of great elegance and tension, super complex, intense and mineral, with great elegance and an endless finish. A great Riesling knocking on Unendlich's door.

February, 2017

David Schildknecht

Vinous Media

94 points

Four separate pickings informed this bottling – the last on October 25 – with the best botrytis berries directed to a bit of Beerenauslese that was still fermenting when I tasted here in June 2016. Musky, narcissus-like floral perfume mingles with scents of ripe apricot and peach, and those features then inform an expansive, creamy, glycerol-rich palate. For all of the richness that typifies a Hirtzberger Singerriedel bottling, and which this one displays in spades, the 2015 also exhibits on its wonderfully sustained finish unusual buoyancy and transparency to stony and crystalline nuances and musky inner-mouth florality.

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About Franz Hirtzberger

The Hirtzberger family purchased its first vineyards in the village of Spitz in the late 1800s. The winery is situated at the western end of the Wachau - the part that's coolest and closest to the mountains. The terraced Singerriedel vineyard has brought the family near legendary status for its Riesling, while the Honivogl has done the same with Grüner Veltliner. Such sites, allied to an approach that’s simple in the extreme, lend the wines an often astonishing transparency and complexity.

About

"In every walk of life the best results are obtained as a result of care," says Franz Hirtzberger, adding, "this is especially true when it comes to the vine." He and his son, also Franz, now share responsibilities in the vineyard and the cellar in order to give the vine and its fruit all the time and attention possible in their quest for great wine. Wines are fermented in stainless steel and then aged in old oak barrels and sit stylistically somewhat apart from the rest. Spicy, exotic and perfectly poised, they nevertheless combine the opulence of FX Pichler with Prager’s racy purity.