Weingut Alzinger Ried Loibenberg Smaragd Gruner Veltliner 2019
-
Wine
Enthusiast -
Wine
Spectator - Decanter
Product Details
Your Rating
Somm Note
Winemaker Notes
Reflection of its terroir; concentrated and yet elegant at the same time; complex aroma profile – mostly with tropical nuances; velvety, juicy on the palate, yet gripping and lively.
Professional Ratings
-
Wine Enthusiast
A touch of savory yeast slowly emerges on the closed nose. The taut but concentrated palate then adds its yeasty, salty, crushed dandelion flavors to the picture. This is bright and fresh, wonderfully tight and concentrated, just waiting to unfold layer upon layer of salty umami pleasure. Slender, tight and full of promise, it ends on a flash of citrus.
Cellar Selection -
Wine Spectator
Offers some high-toned elderflower, beeswax and tropical fruit aromas, along with grapefruit and legume flavors. Intense and complex on an elegant frame, with a bracingly long finish.
-
Decanter
The ‘Loibenberg’ single-vineyard sits halfway up a hill, sunny and warm with deep loess soil. The Grüner Veltliner is more golden in colour than the ‘Ried Steinertal’ from the same producer. A ripe nose of stone fruit, yellow pear and green apple, garnished by a hint of crushed stone, dusted by nose-tingling pepper spices. Smooth and oily in texture, with lovely concentration of yellow fruits, grapefruit, bitter lime peel and green apple, a savoury undertone follows to a long, spicy finish.
Other Vintages
2021-
Robert
Parker
-
James
Suckling
-
Wine
Enthusiast -
Robert
Parker -
Wine
Spectator
Leo Alzinger is located in Unterloiben, just across the street from Knoll. Leo owns parcels in two of the great vineyards in this part of the river valley: Loibenberg and Steinertal. Loibenberg is a towering, terraced hillside, while the diminutive (5.5 hectare) Steinertal is hidden and maintains a cooler micro-climate. On the terraced vineyards of both sites, riesling is cultivated on the higher, more primary rock rich parcels while grüner veltliner is cultivated on the lower, silty, loess based parcels. Harvest at Alzinger happens later than some of Leo’s neighbors in Unterloiben, something he attributes to old vines and the specific exposition of his parcels. The extra time on the vine doesn’t increase sugar levels, Leo says, but rather pushes physiological ripeness to greater balance. Alzinger crushes whole cluster with a short maceration, then allows the must to settle for 24 hours, dropping any green tannins out. Tasting the wines next to some of the other Wachau greats, it becomes apparent that elegance and pristine fruit is what Leo looks for in winemaking, rather than opulence. Alzinger’s wines are never forceful or assertive; they are instead amazingly sanguine and calmly transparent.
Fun to say and delightfully easy to drink, Grüner Veltliner calls Austria its homeland. While some easily quaffable Grüners come in a one-liter—a convenient size—many high caliber single vineyard bottlings can benefit from cellar aging. Somm Secret—About 75% of the world’s Grüner Veltliner comes from Austria but the variety is gaining ground in other countries, namely Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and the United States.
As Austria’s most prestigious wine growing region, the landscape of the Wachau is—not surprisingly—one of its most dramatic. Millions of years ago, the Danube River chiseled its way through the earth, creating steep terraces of decomposed volcanic and metamorphic rock. Harsh Ice Age winds brought deposits of ancient glacial dust and loess to the terrace’s eastern faces. Today these steep surfaces of nutrient-poor and fast draining soil are home to some of Austria’s very best sites for both Grüner Veltliner and Riesling.
Wachau is small, comprising a mere three percent of Austria’s vine surface and, considering relatively low yields, represents a miniscule proportion of total wine production. Diurnal temperature shifts in Wachau facilitate great balance of sugar and phenolic ripeness in its grapes. At night cold air from the Alps and forests in the northwest displace warm afternoon air, which gets sucked upstream along the Danube.
Its sites are actually so varied and distinct that more emphasis is going into vineyard-designated offerings even despite grape variety. Grüner Veltliner and Riesling are most prominent, but the region produces Chardonnay, Pinot Blanc (Weissburgunder), Pinot Gris, Sauvignon Blanc and Zweigelt among other local variants.