HIEDLER’S 2025 COLLECTION

Ludwig “Senior” appears to have actually retired. He came back to the winery after a lengthy absence to say hi to me, I was told. This isn’t common; often the elders stick around, if only to ensure the kids aren’t getting up to any mischief. But my old friend Ludwig is off to the rest of his life, leaving the estate in the able hands of his sons.

In a fundamental way, Hiedlers will always be Hiedlers. Their website is eloquent on that score. The question I find myself asking is, will Hiedler wines always be Hiedler wines, at least as I knew them?

From the time of my first acquaintance some thirty-plus years ago, Hiedler wines stood apart. The norm among the other leading Kamptal estate expressed a commonality one might call “modern” or “contemporary,” but Ludwig’s wines were analogue, almost creamy, relatively voluptuous. He liked a little botrytis, and when I said his wines had schmalz his face lit up. “Yes, exactly, I want this schmalz! That is the extract.” He was preoccupied with extract, but what always amazed me about his wines was their cogent clarity even with all that gooey extract.

He was attuned to Grüner Veltliner and especially to Weissburgunder, once telling me “I am not really a Riesling man…” yet smiling shyly when I pointed out how superb his Rieslings were. The quintessential Hiedler wine might have been the GV Thal, but the best Hiedler wine was invariably found among his Rieslings. Still, I relished his singular nature, my friend the fellow lone wolf.

But he isn’t there now. And the sons, Ludwig (Junior!) and Dietmar have ideas of their own, and every right to them. The question then becomes, where is the line between redefining an estate’s wine style and making such a radical break from the past that it feels like starting over? The question arose while tasting the new vintage of Riesling Heiligenstein, which was made in an updated “dialect” that would have taken me aback had it come from Dad’s hand. Did I like it? I thought it spectacular. It seemed to me the best Riesling I’d yet tasted from here. What had been gained was tangible and laudable. What had been “lost” was intangible, more immaterial -  identity. To make such a wine entailed shape-shifting an established identity – meaning how one expected the wine(s) to be versus how it actually was in the glass.

At first I had mixed feelings, but on reflection I’m coming down on the side of human expression. There is no reason to be yoked to a type of wine by dint of some Divine-Right-Of-Dad, and the young men would never repudiate the work of their forbears. But they are manifestly entitled to express themselves as they find fulfilling, and if this means their wines will cease being outliers, then no matter. Though I suspect we will always know a Hiedler wine from the very first sip. It can’t be helped. It lives within a point of view that takes more than a shift in the cellar to erase.

As much as Hiedler may be bonded to Grüner Veltliner – and they are –  they are more profoundly a source of outstanding Riesling.  I recently opened a bottle of the 2015 Heiligenstein, which tastes like the wine of another era compared to the gleaming new ’23. I’ll miss the old style. I’ll relish the new.