Hyacinth; Normandy cider-like apple; mint; and fresh lime feature on the nose and juicy, buoyant palate of Bodenstein’s 2010 Riesling Smaragd Achleiten. It combines extract and an attendant sense of residual sugar-free sweetness with, for Smaragd, surprising levity with transparency to both inner-mouth floral perfume and stony nuances that is typical for this great site. The rarified, cooling, soothing personality brings less energy to bear than many of the vintage’s best Rieslings and displays nowhere near the lusciousness of fruit of its Gruner Veltliner counterpart, but is nonetheless utterly winsome. Plan to savor this over the next 6-8 years. “True, we had higher than normal acid levels,” relates Toni Bodenstein, “but I did things differently than in other years; three things, namely. The first was to let the grapes hang especially long, and all of the Smaragd was harvested in November. Then, I employed up to 17 hours of skin contact, which reduced the acidity by a gram, sometimes even more. Of course, that was tartaric acid, but due to the long hang time and healthy fruit, we had a high ratio of tartaric. And after long fermentations – not ended before February – we added no sulfur whatsoever and retained the fine lees, which we then stirred weekly through April, making for even higher extract levels and more buffering. And given the high extract and low pH levels, these wines needed comparatively little sulfur at bottling, which with the exception of one early portion of Federspiel, took place in May. To have de-acidified them,” he concludes emphatically, “would have been to risk stripping them of their souls.” Given the tiny size of his crop, Bodenstein elected to forgo separate bottlings from two sites each in Riesling and Gruner Veltliner, instead supplementing his two Federspiel bottlings with that fruit (even if their vineyard designations on the labels stayed the same) “and even then,” he notes, “with Weitenberg and Liebenberg added into the Hinter der Burg, for example, I ended up with less than 50% of the volume of that Federspiel in 2009.”Importer: Winebow, Montvale, NJ; tel. (201) 445-0620

Finely balanced and powerful, showing a lush juiciness to the red peach, ripe apple and melon flavors, with dried tropical fruits chiming in as well. Light pastry and exotic spice notes fill the vibrant finish with plenty of zest. Drink now through 2030. 20 cases imported.??–KM??Region: Austria / Nieder?sterreich / Wachau Select to Add