Weingut Berger
2020 Grüner Veltliner Gedersdorf
This newly designated “village-wine” takes the place of the previous site called Zehetnerin, which was Erich’s “little” GV; this one has just 11.5% alc. For some reason it was always a riot of fragrance, as this is. I wonder if that blast-o-scent is fleeting, i.e., would it last 2-3 years. We’ll never know as wines like this are made to be drunk up.
Light wine doesn’t have to be slight, and this one isn’t. After that fetching aroma, the palate is ferrous and fir-like, leading to a markedly big whoosh of lentil and mineral dust on the back, surprisingly adamant for such a wee little lad, and that snappiness leads in turn to a static-y finish, as though the wine were suddenly irked. That’s likely the vintage, as it breaks from the template of the many vintages I’ve had.
In my merchant days, I felt in principle that we should lead people from the Liters directly to the mid-range wine coming up next, but often I was captivated by the charm of this flyweight and couldn’t help offering it. To little avail, alas.
2020 Grüner Veltliner Loessterassen
It has the classic 12.5% alc; in ripe years it’s often climbed to 13%, which defeats the wine’s purpose.
The wines in the middle don’t get no love. Doesn’t matter what they taste like. They are an inexplicable “item.” Cheap wine is an “item” and big important wines with “scores” are an item, and between these is a community of delicious wines that no one seems to know what to do with. Um, drinking them might could be the answer, just sayin.’ Among the many things I love about my successor Gabe Clary, one is that he truly understands this principle, though I doubt his headwinds are less aggressive than mine were.
In any case this is a beautiful vintage, and also an atypical one. That is, it’s atypically green. Loess usually gives what I call the “wet-cereal” flavor, having to do with a weird thing I did as a child, to let my cereal get soggy and then eat it. It also relates to oatmeal, cream of rice, jasmine, sweet hay. A sunny disposition. This guy, though, has points to make. The wine is markedly herbal and redolent of sweet fern, Sencha tea, hyssop and dill, and all of it comes on the heels of a fetching aroma that wants to lead you elsewhere.
Again, I expect this is the ’20 vintage, but we’re atypically assertive here, and the wine contains the strategic national reserve of rotundone.
2020 Grüner Veltliner (Ried) Moosburgerin
CASK SAMPLE. I found both the ’19 and ’18 overripe, but we all know I’m a fusspot for white wines at/above 14% alc. This one smells good in a rugged sort of way.
The palate isn’t working for me. There’s a jalapeño heat, and the pepperiness reminds me of the Penja from Cameroun, which is the one you use if you’re looking for bite. I switched over to the long-stemmed round Spiegelau, which improved matters considerably. Basically you want the glass to express the spherical “sweetness” (in the physiological sense) and suppress the sour elements – and this one does. It may also feel less bellicose after bottling. Right now it’s nightshades and burned lentils and oolong tea in the Wu-Yi type.
Could be one of those wines I’m not destined to come to terms with. It happens.
2020 Grüner Veltliner “Optimis terrae”
CASK SAMPLE. And this has the classic fragrances of serious loess GV, a madness of lentils and fennel seed.
It’s serious to the point of earnestness. Just a description, not a judgment. It would make sense for Erich to have ambitions beyond the nice-guy wines, albeit I like the nice-guy wines. But we have a Statement here. We have a density of body that borders on creamy, yet any furtive sense of lusciousness is firmly sent packing by an adamant dryness. It’s as if there’s something it wants to prove.
But I admire it, greatly; I respect its ambition, and while it’s maybe a little heavy on the tread, it manages even its modest vegetal note. A firm classic, in some way a capital-C classic, asserting density and thickness, if not elegance or charm.
This by the way is the second wine made in full by Erich’s son Maximilan, who did four days on the skins (without oxidation). The name means (in effect) “best earth.”
2021
2020 Grüner Veltliner LITER
I wonder when was the last time I wrote a tasting note for this wine. Usually it was “good again,” sometimes very good, and I tried to “make the sale” for the category. Now here is the wine.
The wine, as always, is true. In contrast to the Setzer it’s creamier (but not actually “creamy”) and sweeter (but obviously not “sweet.”) and it has some of the semolina-savor of loess-grown GV, though I doubt it’s all from loess – there’s a lot of contract-purchased fruit in it, though often the first bottling of a vintage is 100% estate. There’s iron and pepper in the mix also; sandy soils can give those flavors.
It’s enough for such a wine to be honest and agreeable, but in many vintages this is more than agreeable, and this is one of them. There’s texture here, structure, contour and grip. It doesn’t “need” to be this good. But Erich Berger has a deep conscience.
I sold this wine from the very start, back in 1994. “Berger Liters” became a bit of a thing, and then suddenly everyone was offering Liters of GV (with cute names and whimsical labels). Most were just fine – the general level of competence is high in Austria – but it started being a race to the bottom price-wise. Then Liters seemed to become infra dig, but recently they seem to have been rediscovered.
Being a mere humble scribe these days, I can only remark that wines like this – and this one especially – are a real gift to the wine community. East on the wallet, frisky on the palate, super pleasant if “pleasant” is all that’s needed, but offering class and animation for anyone tasting attentively.
2020 Grüner Veltliner Gedersdorf
This newly designated “village-wine” takes the place of the previous site called Zehetnerin, which was Erich’s “little” GV; this one has just 11.5% alc. For some reason it was always a riot of fragrance, as this is. I wonder if that blast-o-scent is fleeting, i.e., would it last 2-3 years. We’ll never know as wines like this are made to be drunk up.
Light wine doesn’t have to be slight, and this one isn’t. After that fetching aroma, the palate is ferrous and fir-like, leading to a markedly big whoosh of lentil and mineral dust on the back, surprisingly adamant for such a wee little lad, and that snappiness leads in turn to a static-y finish, as though the wine were suddenly irked. That’s likely the vintage, as it breaks from the template of the many vintages I’ve had.
In my merchant days, I felt in principle that we should lead people from the Liters directly to the mid-range wine coming up next, but often I was captivated by the charm of this flyweight and couldn’t help offering it. To little avail, alas.
2020 Grüner Veltliner Loessterassen
It has the classic 12.5% alc; in ripe years it’s often climbed to 13%, which defeats the wine’s purpose.
The wines in the middle don’t get no love. Doesn’t matter what they taste like. They are an inexplicable “item.” Cheap wine is an “item” and big important wines with “scores” are an item, and between these is a community of delicious wines that no one seems to know what to do with. Um, drinking them might could be the answer, just sayin.’ Among the many things I love about my successor Gabe Clary, one is that he truly understands this principle, though I doubt his headwinds are less aggressive than mine were.
In any case this is a beautiful vintage, and also an atypical one. That is, it’s atypically green. Loess usually gives what I call the “wet-cereal” flavor, having to do with a weird thing I did as a child, to let my cereal get soggy and then eat it. It also relates to oatmeal, cream of rice, jasmine, sweet hay. A sunny disposition. This guy, though, has points to make. The wine is markedly herbal and redolent of sweet fern, Sencha tea, hyssop and dill, and all of it comes on the heels of a fetching aroma that wants to lead you elsewhere.
Again, I expect this is the ’20 vintage, but we’re atypically assertive here, and the wine contains the strategic national reserve of rotundone.
2020 Grüner Veltliner (Ried) Moosburgerin
CASK SAMPLE. I found both the ’19 and ’18 overripe, but we all know I’m a fusspot for white wines at/above 14% alc. This one smells good in a rugged sort of way.
The palate isn’t working for me. There’s a jalapeño heat, and the pepperiness reminds me of the Penja from Cameroun, which is the one you use if you’re looking for bite. I switched over to the long-stemmed round Spiegelau, which improved matters considerably. Basically you want the glass to express the spherical “sweetness” (in the physiological sense) and suppress the sour elements – and this one does. It may also feel less bellicose after bottling. Right now it’s nightshades and burned lentils and oolong tea in the Wu-Yi type.
Could be one of those wines I’m not destined to come to terms with. It happens.
2020 Grüner Veltliner “Optimis terrae”
CASK SAMPLE. And this has the classic fragrances of serious loess GV, a madness of lentils and fennel seed.
It’s serious to the point of earnestness. Just a description, not a judgment. It would make sense for Erich to have ambitions beyond the nice-guy wines, albeit I like the nice-guy wines. But we have a Statement here. We have a density of body that borders on creamy, yet any furtive sense of lusciousness is firmly sent packing by an adamant dryness. It’s as if there’s something it wants to prove.
But I admire it, greatly; I respect its ambition, and while it’s maybe a little heavy on the tread, it manages even its modest vegetal note. A firm classic, in some way a capital-C classic, asserting density and thickness, if not elegance or charm.
This by the way is the second wine made in full by Erich’s son Maximilan, who did four days on the skins (without oxidation). The name means (in effect) “best earth.”
2019 Grüner Veltliner Ried Wieland
CASK SAMPLE. Calcerous sandy loess. The best GV Erich ever made was – improbably- the 2014 from this vineyard.
Man, ’19 is another world after these ‘20s. And I’m not certain the “foreign-ness” I’m tasting is just that, or an issue with the cask-sample. The wine is a teensy bit spritzy. Please consider this note tentative.
One happy thing I notice is – no oak flavor. And apropos flavor, if this flavor is “true,” then it’s a lovely one, in contrast to the gnarly Moosburgerin and the almost comical earnestness of the last wine. But on retasting (and trying it with food) I do think this wine is distorted by the refermentation that’s always a risk with cask samples that aren’t tasted promptly. Berger’s case too a long time to reach me, thanks to the logistical challenges of this year.
2018 Blauer Zweigelt Ried Haid glug-glug-glug
I remember when good simple Beaujolais smelled this way, not to mention easygoing Dolcetto or Barbera, not to mention unpretentious Schiava from the Alto Adige – basically as charming as red wine can ever smell. It borders on candied but stays on the right side of the line.
The palate surprises with its silken sleekness and its attractive little finishing bitterness, a little jot of smoke and char, and after that riotous prettiness of scent we find a rather serious wine after all. It feints toward the verticality of Blaufränkisch (one of its parents) and as it sits in the glass, toward the pleasing sourness of “basic” Sangiovese. Indeed it tastes like the old straw-basket Chiantis might have tasted if they’d ever been any good.
2017 “Cuvée Maxim” Cabernet Franc + Zweigelt +
Erich’s “big” red usually gets the big red treatment, but right away you notice the limpidity of color, an honest garnet instead of the obsidian opacity of the more…hmmm, affected wines. The fragrance is oaky, like a crianza Rioja. It’s not grossly woody; it’s actually a pleasant aroma, if plausible. A wider glass subdues the wood in favor of fruit.
In a way it’s too bad this is a wine of “local interest” only, because it’s actually very good. My merchant-mind knows it’d be more “saleable” if were entirely Cab Franc. How it tastes doesn’t enter into these equations, not because we’re all terrible people but because a wine is first positioned as an “item” before it is sold as a beverage. Even lofty wines. And it’s hard to make an item out of a cuvée from Austria with a fantasy name and no varietal tag.
So I get it, I understand, and still it rankles me. Because the wine is smart, balanced, tasty, intelligent, and a total batshit joy to drink. Berger isn’t counted among the significant producers of red wine in Austria, so I’d wager the only way you’ll find this is to visit the winery. And again, I get it. There are a gazillion wines in the world, and no one’s stopping the presses for some obscure weirdo wine from a guy in the Kremstal. Only it’s in my glass right now, and I love it. So I’m frustrated.
This isn’t the place for some massive screed on all the wrongheaded thinking and false premises by which it is decided what wines you get to see on retail shelves or wine lists. I’ll find that place elsewhere, you may be certain. But for now let us praise Erich Berger for a triumph of winemaking.
The wine might easily have been overripe. It isn’t.
It might easily have been overextracted. It’s not.
It could have shown the annoying green-pepper tones of many Cab Francs. It doesn’t.
It might easily have succumbed to the false notion that tannin and oak-char would confer “importance” (or its semblance) to the wine. It avoids that mistake.
Do you see what clear-minded guidance this entails? Only if your lodestar is civility and deliciousness could you make a wine like this. I found some faltering among the Veltliners, as you’ll have read, but this wine is greatly reassuring, even if I’m the only guy in the United States who ever drinks a bottle.
2020 Riesling Spiegel
CASK SAMPLE. This is one of those wines, you lift it to your nose and all you can think is “I do like Riesling…..”
Spiegel can be aloof in cooler years. In hot vintages it shines with its restraint and structure. Here, even as a cask sample the wine is tightly wound, not quite bracing (thanks to its ample extract), with flavors closer to Loire Chenin than to most other Rieslings. That is, to Loire Chenin from the purists (and I do NOT mean the Naturalistas) who like them gravelly and dry and solemn.
We have quince, among other “white” flavors (white tea, basmati, jasmine, and white-rock, at least metaphorically…) and it’s only the fleeting surmise of apricot that announces “Riesling.” I like this a lot; it’s how to do Riesling in an utterly dry manner without falling prey to sourness or bitterness or various other meannesses.
Why might that be, I wonder? Obviously we are south (and east) of most German wine country. If you believe in the effect of kilocalories of sunlight, they would be different here. Acids might be structured differently. Yet this determinedly dry Riesling never scrapes or pierces, and I think that’s because there’s a flavor umami and also a textural element one doesn’t anticipate. I’m gonna go crazy here – but I’m thinking of tapioca pearls like in bubble tea, or like Israeli cous cous slightly undercooked….a kind of clotted-ness that offers a curious facsimile of richness and shelters the pathways where bitterness would ride.
There’s also a starch-and-salt thing, like basmati rice with ground Sel Guerande. Yeah, this is a lot of words trying to suss the elements that make a not-terribly-conspicuous Riesling succeed, but you know? There’s too much shitty dry Riesling still being made, and we need to understand how their underlying flaws might be avoided. And maybe a useful way to do that is not to rely on a great Riesling as a guidepost, but instead to consider this thoroughly good (if “incidental”) wine as our template.
2019 Riesling Ried Steingraben +
The antonym of the Spiegel; a rich wine that can lapse into botrytis and overstatedness in hot years but that often shines in cool ones. And 2019 is a big-deal vintage, so….
The aromas are sexy stone fruits. Who doesn’t love a ripe apricot, right? The palate is overt, shimmeringly juicy, entirely ripe and “yellow” and with a swimming mélange of salts and fruits and petals and crunch. And there is zero overripeness nor any discernible botrytis. It’s quite the parfait of loessy wet-cereal, and I can remember when Nigl made Riesling from a loess site called Kremsleiten, that often smelled like this.
The wine is lusty, without any great refinement, but it has its own form of repose. Wines like these can sometimes seem to force themselves on you with an unseemly urgency, but this one is simply generous and available. It measures its command, and has power in reserve.
2020 Gelber Muskateller glug-glug-glug
Okay, guilty as charged; I am gaga over dry Muscat. In case you don’t know this, i.e., are unfamiliar with my written output hitherto, let me lay some groundwork.
It has to be Gelber Muskateller, because this is a finicky low-yielding high-acid variety without the car-air-freshener aromas of inferior members of the Muscat family, e.g. Muscat-Ottonel.
It is rarely “great,” but when it is it has unusual underlying minerality (Zind-Humbrecht’s Goldert Grand Cru being the prominent example), or unusually crystalline detail (Müller-Catoir above all others).
When it is “good” it blends two elements to perfection. One is a cattiness and the other is a rampant florality, specifically elderflower. Unripe years are too sere and catty. Then it’s all Thai basil that started getting gooey in your fridge. But when these disparate things are poised against each other, a miracle results.
It’s a minor miracle, obviously. But we take our miracles where we can find them. And Erich Berger has provided an outsized proportion of Muscat-miracles over the years. And it isn’t easy to do. The variety will rot if given half a chance, and if you pick it in a panic before it starts fouling, you get too much cat and not enough flower. Small wine, which I happen to appreciate, but then I like Muscat.
This ’20 is fine dry Muscat. It’s not “great” but wow, it is entirely good! Maybe 60-40 cat to blossom – and remember, elderflower can also be funky. I do admit Muscat can appear somewhat crude for palates insistent on the finesse of Riesling, but I love this particular crudeness and so there’s nothing to forgive. And Berger has The Touch for this variety, and for this ongoing little miracle, he has my abiding thanks.
2020 Rosé Vom Zweigelt
It’s what you’d expect Berger rosé to be; correct, discreet, delicate, unfussy. It does rather join a glom of forgettable rosés, but I doubt if Erich has grand ambitions for it. I’ll call it…incidental.
2025
2018 Cabernet Franc
Erich slipped a bottle of this into the case. He may have thought I never tasted it, and maybe I hadn’t. In any event, it smells like 2018 (the vintage is obtaining its own aroma regardless of variety or color), like “toasty oak,” and like Cab Franc. It also smells a little heady, thanks to its 14% alc.
It shows the “sweet” side of the variety – berries and berry marmalade – without green pepper or related herbaciousness. It smells attractive, actually, though maybe a little plausible.
On the palate it is an effective display of poise among oak and (over)ripe fruit. At the end there’s a jalapeño bite, but not the crushing whomp of many wines at/above 14%. (In any case it’s less obnoxious among reds than among whites, though I don’t like it in either.) A little weediness shows from the Jancis glass, which I find curiously reassuring. Otherwise it's just another big-fruit-and-oak wine that could be anything coming from anyplace.
Yet from the Riedel “Chianti Classico” glass it shows a kind of elegance. You could even call it supple. I have some fresh morels, and I think I’ll sauté them in duck fat with plenty of (Sarawak) pepper, and this should be tasty with them critters. It’s an honorable and agreeable rendition of a wine type I happen to avoid, and while I do not relish it, I do respect it.
I also came to like it, as I sipped a half-glass with dinner a couple times. Some wines are gaudy at first, only to reveal depths we don’t expect, as they calm down with air.
2023 Grüner Veltliner LITER
The famous “Berger Liter.” A wine so successful it has, in a cruel paradox, actually blocked drinkers from trading up to Berger’s better wines. It’s his own damn fault, in fact; this wine is too good.
It was sweet of him to send it. He didn’t need to; I know the wine backwards and forwards, I know it will be good, and it will sell regardless of what I may write. That is because it is varietally true, and it is by no means innocuous. It has body, and it does have the jasmine-like cultured yeasty enticement. You can keep it a few years also.
There should be a Nobel prize for generosity toward the wine community, because this wine over-delivers for its modest price. It is so typical it even shows the end-palate bite of 2023. When is the vintage decisive (or even discernible) in a “volume” wine like this? Not very damn often.
In my post-tasting sipping regimen I imagined this would be one of those “little wines” you wet your whistle with before receding to the better bottles. I’m delighted to tell you, that didn’t happen. The very top GVs are of course unreachable by this (or most) wines, but up to that level I found I preferred this, because of its lovely texture and discreet yet friendly fruit.
2023 Grüner Veltliner Gedersdorf glug-glug-glug!
The village-wine has all of 11.5% alc. The wine is entirely adorable. It is also more particular than the Liter, more definitively varietal, though it’s sleeker and less creamy. It shows the green-bean and legume profile of GV, and this time the finish is typically peppery, though if you pay attention you’ll note it’s rasping at your tooth enamel at the end.
Ah, ’23. I wonder if the vintage will laugh last. It’s not impossible.
It swerved interesting over the days, and now, three days later and having sipped it in the interim, it’s reverted to a beguiling sort of seriousness, like a little kid wearing his dad’s clothes and observing himself in the mirror, drawing himself up and lowering his voice as best he can.
Meanwhile we have a wine for which no grand claims can be made, yet I admire it with my entire heart.
2023 Grüner Veltliner Gedersdorfer Lössterassen
The middle of the range, which tends to be commercially deadly. I always doted on the wine, but this is an example of the stylistic change at Berger. Forget the 13% alc (compared to what was typically 12.5%); the wine simply has more force and torque now.
I like a certain adamance in a wine, the risk being the proximity to coarseness. This seems to dodge that danger, but only just.
It’s an example of elements that do not cohere, and how this can be fascinating at times and annoying at other times. Part of the fragrance is truly soaring, while part of the end-palate is overly assertive. But what it asserts is a facet of GV I like, a kind of gnarl and daring. This is neither rough nor rustic, but it is rural, it eschews any hint of polish.
How lovely it is to actually drink, well, that’s another matter. I liked the old style better, though mine was a minority taste.
I’d also say the wine is less successful in its echelon that the preceding wine was in its. It seeks to be serious but ends up merely earnest. And in its core it feels querulous. I see that I liked the ’24, so this could be a “23-thing.” But still, sigh….the world goes on, and while I have generally friendly feelings for this wine in principle, I do miss the smile of its forbears.
2022 Grüner Veltliner Moosburgerin +
Cask-sample
The site seems to show the dour side of GV. That said, I tasted it six weeks ago from the bottled wine, and liked it. This sample shows less impact from the 500l acacia casks it was raised in. (Acacia is looser-grained than oak but also less pronounced. It often confers a sideways “sweetness” like that of Viognier.)
Here's another example of how ’23 flatters ’22 when you taste them together. In fact you could argue ’22 is the lesser vintage, yet it is markedly more drinky. Bottling also focused the structure and gave the wine more contour. I’ll taste it colder when I taste it again.
The soil is loess over a limestone conglomerate, and there are vintners who make Riesling from here. Many of those wines are highly “scored.” Interesting that Berger chooses to produce an analog umami-driven wine, swimming against what I surmise to be the current. It’s almost like the (old) Hiedler style. I mentioned morels above, but this wine calls for chanterelles. At the very end, the wine shows a lovely weird note of curry.
The cask-sample was rather perishable – not its fault obviously – but on the third day open an oxidation prevented me from seeing into (what had been) its convincing depths.
2022 Grüner Veltliner Optimis Terrae ++
Cask-sample. It should carry the Maximilian Berger label, if I’m not mistaken.
Just released a couple months ago – my god, for once I am timely!
This is the “important” GV and the designation is justified. It’s a big (but not burly) GV, still with “country” manners and affect, wonderfully atmospheric and smoky.
Indeed it shows elements of primary-rock GV, boxwood, thyme and marjoram, the iron-like ferrous note, nettle, and all with the textural succulence of ’22 at its best. That, and something un-tethered, sprinting into the future with nary a glance back.
It is a masterpiece of the dark flavors of GV, yet its juiciness makes it delightful to drink thanks to all that lavish texture. It stands among the best GVs I’ve had from here in my 30-plus year acquaintance with these wines, and it also stands apart from the others. If this is a paradigm Max Berger has in view, all I can say is to go for it.
2023 Chardonnay Zehetnerin
Cask-sample
Erich always showed me his Chardonnay. As a rule I liked it, moderately. He didn’t expect me to select it, but he’s a completist, and wanted to show me all his wines. I’d have loved a bottle with some pike-perch and veggies on a nice Spring evening, when Riesling might have had too much personality.
This one is perfectly good, and also perfectly a ’23, meaning it bites at the end. Till then it’s in the straw-and-hay family of Chards, and whatever stones or fruit it may hold are hard for me to discern. There is maybe a bit of stoniness connected to the end-palate sharpness.
I imagine the variety was planted back when it was a trendy novelty in Austria, and I’m sure he sells it well. Nonetheless, I’d be encouraged if Max Berger did away with it, or made a PetNat or whatever.
2023 “MMXXIII” Weisser Burgunder Ried Altmandl
This is the Maximilian Berger label, to denote the wines that are his alone.
It’s a toasty-leesy wine of the white Burgundy type, and it’s a bit oakier than it needs to be. Yet if one seeks to make a wine like this, I think Pinot Blanc is better suited to it than Chardonnay.
The wine is a curious original in some ways. Oak is too blatant, yet certain among its flavors act in surprising ways. I’m taken aback by the cardamom, butterscotch and acacia blossom, and less persuaded by the shellfish-stock flavors that occur when the stock is cooked too long. (Chefs call it “tacky.”)
If you relish oaky wines, you could manage this one by cooking foods it would like. I’d call it an “encouraging experiment,” and I’m aware that 2023 wasn’t a vintage that would suit a wine like this.
Looking at my visit-notes from April, I see there’s no oak! But there’s full malo, which may explain some of the diacetyl-based exotics. Ha! Shows what I know….maybe the wine needed oak.
I set about cooking for it. We had fresh wild-caught Copper River sockeye, which I put onto a bed of black and purple rice(s) which was itself on a bed of sauteed trumpet mushrooms, and which sat under the broiler for seven minutes. The match was perfect. You’re invited to revisit the complaint with which this post began….
2022 Riesling Ried Spiegel +
I adored the ’23 at the winery a few weeks ago. And this one is close on its heels.
First a note: Spiegel used to be the “entry-level” Riesling leading to the Steingraben. The latter has been discontinued, which means this one is now vinified toward substance and concentration and away from the simpler, fresher style of old. It succeeds beautifully.
It has the ’22 “sweet-greens” – balsam, high-mountain oolong, wintergreen, young sorrel – and the textural drinkyness the ‘22s are showing. I would argue that the wines give an equivalent pleasure to those of “greater” vintages. Not equal, equivalent. Right now, ‘22s like this are simply a pleasure to drink. If you counter that it is a “simple” pleasure I’d say your point is well taken, yet the pleasure such wines show spreads all the way through into what pleasure can contain.
If I accept there’s a scale-of-exaltation I’ll ask you to observe when a pleasure at any point along the scale attains an apogee in its stratum. Here, as the cool melon-like lift dissolves, it leaves a finely calibrated mineral in its wake.
A delicious and articulate and sensual Riesling that gives the pure joy of a perfect melody. And that reminds us of the primacy of Riesling, in case we need reminding.
2022 “MMXXIII” Riesling Ried Steiner Pfaffenberg +
Thus is legitimately a top Cru, as seen by the wines of Knoll and Salomon-Undhof. Bergers were stoked to obtain the parcel. And this is probably the best vintage they have made – more convincing than the ’23 I tasted at the winery.
That said, and though it clearly hails from more illustrious terroir, the actual wine in the glass isn’t better than the Spiegel. It is differently complex, less fruit-driven, and not so much “mineral” as savory, as though it has a few strands of Veltliner DNA in its sequence.
Language falters at its threshold. I’d write sunny rocks and whole-wheat porridge and would know exactly what I meant by it. Who else would?
Minerality billows in the glass. Yet it’s encased in a wide-spreading warmth, making it powerfully imprecise, different from Riesling’s usual behavior. So if I write crushed quarry and whole-wheat toast I know, once again, exactly what I mean, uselessly.
Now a subversive idea. A few grams of RS – whatever it might already have plus four more – would give the wine a focus point and raise the ante on its terroir notes and also make better sense of its savories. This would be met with the same response I’m given to all my subversive ideas: “Hmmm, yessss, maybe, but the thing is we’d never do it.”
It's worthy enough as it is. Don’t drink it too cold. But drink it.
Finally it bears mentioning that both Rieslings held much steadier than any of the other wines (except, wonderfully, the Liter) over the six days we lived with them. There’s no Great Grand Truth to infer from this, since the top two GVs were cask samples, yet Riesling is just so reliable.
Riesling SEKT, Brut, N.V.
As is often the case with “unambitious” Sekt, there’s no info available as to assemblage or disgorgement date. Based on the cork it’s within the last year.
The wine is decent, everyday, unassuming fizz, neither more nor less, probably produced so that winery visitors can add it as an impulse to whatever else they buy. Maybe Max will step up the game for this, or maybe he’ll decide it’s a better use for their Chardonnay, but in any case it’s rather a sag in the mattress, considering the care that’s taken with Riesling and GV.
2023 Gelber Muskateller glug-glug-glug! AND +
Bless this little dickens with its 11.5% alc. And bless the Family Berger for making a consistently gorgeous Muscat year upon year.
Muscat growers (at least in Austria) sometimes tend to want to outdo its innate and direct simplicity. At times they succeed. Certainly the lovely balsam and fir elements in the Styrian Muscats are not present here. The clamp of pungency (and even minerality) of Nigl’s Muscats is something you won’t find here.
What you will find is an utter glory of fruit that is neither cloying nor sentimental nor mundane. Yup, it’s basic basil and elderflower, but it lives within a texture that’s just creamy enough to be addictive and captivating. And you know, Mr. Wordsmith here is leaving the laptop, because with a wine like this, the less said the better. It is perfect. You’ll love it. If you don’t love it, tell me how you feel about babies and dogs….