Many of you will remember the wines of Hirsch from their old black-and-gold labels with the deer (‘hirsch’) over the second ‘h.’ Striking as those labels were, I think the spare elegance of the newly designed Hirsch bottle—still graced with a leaping deer—better represents the impeccable, refined wine inside.
Johannes Hirsch runs his family estate with a deep respect for its centuries-old history, farming his 31 hectares of vineyards according to rigorous biodynamic principles and producing single-vineyard wines from some of the best sites in Austria’s picturesque Kamptal. There’s a level of refinement, purity, and precision from the top to the bottom of the Hirsch, as evidenced by this 2015 “Hirschvergnügen” Grüner Veltliner. How this wine costs only $23 is beyond me, but I’m not complaining: There’s structure, texture, and aromatic complexity to spare here, complements not just of an exceptional vintage but an exceptional winemaker. It’s what I’d call a ‘gateway wine,’ because it could very likely lead to a full-blown Hirsch habit. If this is his ‘entry-level’ wine, you may ask, what must his upper-tier stuff be like? (Hint: It’s awesome.)
The wine regions along the Danube west of Vienna—Wachau, Kremstal, Kamptal—are incredibly rich in history, and the architecture and landscape hasn’t changed a whole lot over the centuries. Visiting places like the Kamptal really feels like going back in time; Johannes Hirsch lives in a house that “was constructed at the time when Albrecht Dürer created his famous ‘Rhinoceros’ woodcut and Michelangelo was at work on his frescoes in Rome’s Sistine Chapel.” The Hirsch family acquired the property in 1878, and it remained a mixed-use farm until the 1970s, when Johannes’ father, Josef, began focusing more intently on viticulture. Over the years, Josef—joined by Johannes in the mid-1990s—pieced together more vineyard land en route to the estate’s current dimensions, with a focus almost exclusively on Gruner Veltliner (60% of their plantings) and Riesling (35%).
The Kamptal takes its name from the Kamp River, a tributary of the Danube, and the primary soil type (for Grüner) here is loess, a mineral-rich, wind-blown silt fused with calcium carbonate. The Kamptal is the easternmost of the Wachau-Kremstal-Kamptal triumvirate, feeling a slightly more profound influence from the warmer Pannonian plain to the east, although all of these regions are influenced by a push-pull of warm and cold air—the latter coming in the form of mountain-born breezes from the Waldviertel region to the northwest. Kamptal Grüners are powerfully structured and long-lived, with more texture than you might expect from this spicy, high-acid variety.
The Hirsch commitment to organics and biodynamics is not a response to current fashion: they began the conversion to biodynamic and organic back in 2006, and are now certified by the Austrian body called RESPEKT. Josef Hirsch started a composting program way back in the late-1970s, partnering with a nearby cheese producer with whom he traded hay for buffalo manure. The Hirsches mention this friendly arrangement on their website, exclaiming “It’s all about buffalo shit!”
“Vergnügen,” by the way, translates as “pleasure,” and this steel-fermented-and-aged 2015 is indeed that. Straw-gold with green and silver reflections at the rim, it shows off the bold character of 2015 vintage, characterized by some as a ‘vintage of the century’ in Austria: Aromas of tart green apple, green melon, lemongrass, cucumber, white pepper, and coriander leap from the glass, carrying through on a rich wave across the palate. As with many 2015s, you can feel the extra level of concentration and yet the wine doesn’t devolve into flabbiness; the acid frames the rich fruit and a saline mineral component takes over the finish. The combination of viscosity and energy is impressive—this doesn’t come along that often in white wine, especially at this price point. Drink this wine now, and often, in all-purpose white wine stems at 40-45 degrees. It would be amazing with salads incorporating peppery greens like arugula and/or watercress. Check out the attached recipe for avocado/watercress salad—the ingredient list reads like a tasting note for this wine. Cheers!
