Austria’s spectacular Wachau region, a verdant stretch of the Danube given UNESCO World Heritage status, is thick with families whose winemaking roots (and family properties) go back many centuries. The profundity of that history and the intricacies of the local terroir are reflected in the region’s inimitable wines, which carry not just village and vineyard names but their own Wachau-specific ripeness designations (Steinfeder; Federspiel; Smaragd). Of those, it is Smaragd which is the most lauded, producing bone-dry wines of power, complexity, and long aging ability. So today’s discovery hails from a single vineyard of prime Wachau terroir, is made by a top winemaking talent, and has a decade of aging already. All of that for sub $40!?! Yup, it’s a wine grand slam, and the perfect way to kick off 2025!
If you look at a vineyard map of the Wachau, the area known as the Arnsdorf is toward the western end of the region, near Spitz, on the opposite side of the Danube. The vineyards of Oberarnsdorf, Mitterarnsdorf and a few other –arnsdorfs are “Rupertiwein” country. The Hick estate, currently run by Maria Hick and her husband, Manfred, is in Mitterarnsdorf; as in the villages of the Spitzer Graben, which follow a narrow valley west of Spitz, the vineyards of the Arnsdorf feel a more profound cooling influence from the nearby Waldviertel forest district, and the soils of the area are predominantly comprised of paragneiss—a hard sedimentary rock shot through with bands of quartz, mica, and other minerals. In much the same way that these rocks glisten in the sun, the Riesling wines that emerge from these soils have an unmistakable crystalline quality.
Totaling about 6 hectares of vineyards, the Hick holdings include a site called “Stiegelstal,” here prefaced on the label with the word “Ried,” which has become a sort of official prefix for noteworthy single-vineyard sites on labels (not unlike “Vigna” in Italian or “Cru” in French). Although Maria Hick took over the estate in 2003, her family has links to the property that go back more than 300 years, when it was owned by a monastery in Salzburg. Since taking the reins (following her completion of enology school in Krems), Maria has implemented organic and biodynamic farming practices in her vineyards and endeavored to minimize her use of sulfur as well, resulting in wines of tremendous energy and purity. Although she has caught the attention of the Austrian wine press, she’s just now finding an audience in the States—but with wines like this, that audience is likely to grow exponentially!
As defined by the Wachau producers’ association known as the Vinea Wachau Nobilis Districtus, today’s 2015 is classified as Smaragd, the top tier of three ripeness levels, which usually translates to a wine that reaches 12.6 to 14% a.b.v. at bottling (this one is 13.5%). Sourced from the steeply pitched, west/northwest-facing Stiegelstal site, the wine is at once angular and fleshy—a mouthwatering push-pull of green fruits, shards of rock, wildflowers and bracing freshness. In the glass, it’s a bright yellow gold with silver and green reflections, with an expressive nose of green apple, lime pith, white grapefruit, peach, tarragon, dried mushroom, and thanks to bottle age a healthy dollop of petrol. These sensations are confirmed on the medium-bodied palate, which leaves a lasting impact after a wave of freshness crashes ashore and ignites the salivary response. The ripeness and power of the 2015 vintage is on full display already, showing perfectly at 10 years of age, but this beauty will continue to improve for another five to ten years no problem. Given the price then, there’s no reason not to go deep!
