Austria overshadows its much larger neighbors with laser straight, brilliant whites and elegant dry reds, making for a compelling list of the best Austrian bottles of the year.
Our list of best Austrian wines released in 2018 says a great deal about why the Alpine nation’s winemakers have enjoyed such success over recent years. Their tight focus on dry whites with a distinctive flavor profile – medium- to full-bodied with plenty of fruit and spice, but no loud aromas – has propelled them to a position in many markets that overshadows their larger neighbor Germany.
Lucas and Johanna Pichler of FX Pichler in the Wachau who’s dry riesling Unendlich 2017 topped out Top 100 Austria in 2018.
This is fully reflected in our best Austrian wine of the year, the Riesling Unendlich from FX Pichler in the Wachau. Unenedlich means ‘endless’ and that’s what the finish of this mind-blowingly concentrated yet precisely balanced dry white is like. No wonder it is rated a perfect 100. And our number two wine, the Riesling Smaragd Singerriedel from Franz Hirtzberger also in the Wachau, is hot on its heels with a 99 rating and the same virtues. It tastes pristine and refined with a weightless quality, in spite of the lavish exotic-fruit character.
These are world-class dry wines for prices well below comparable dry whites from Burgundy and with even greater food-matching strengths – they can handle spicy Asian food with an ease white Burgundy seldom matches. This has seen dry whites from the Austrian section of the Danube Valley become especially popular in cool and sophisticated restaurants around the world.
Crucial to this success were the special aromas of dry whites from the indigenous grüner veltliner grape (also widely grown in many Eastern European countries and starting to establish a foothold on the US East and West coasts). The white pepper and herbal notes of this grape are totally different from the peachiness of riesling or the grassy and bell pepper notes of sauvignon blanc. Sadly, 2018 was a difficult vintage for grüner veltliner in Austria, because of the massive heat (climate change!) that often leads to low acidity and overly alcoholic wines. However, we found a few spicy and elegant masterpieces like the Grüner Veltliner Smaragd Achleiten 2017 from Rudi Pichler in the Wachau that was our equal highest rated grüner veltliner with 98 points. It ranks seventh in our Top 100.
Austria’s dramatic progress in the field of elegant dry reds is confirmed by the Blaufränkisch Neckenmarkt Alte Reben 2015 from Moric in Burgenland that rated 98 and ranked third in our list. This enormously brilliant yet graceful red shows what the blaufränkisch grape is capable of when the vines are old enough (Alte Reben is German for ‘old vines’), and the winemaker looks for finesse and avoids the use of new oak. Oak easily obscures the distinctive elderberry, pepper and clove notes of this Austro-Hungarian grape that can match pinot noir for sensual appeal, but usually has a brighter acidity and firmer tannin structure.
The steep terraced vineyards of the Wachau in the Danube Valley, in this case the Achleiten and Klaus sites of Weissenkirchen.
There’s more compelling evidence of this trend with the 97 points and 13th place for the enormously concentrated Blaufränkisch Reiburg R 2012 from Schiefer in Burgenland, recently released after almost six years of cask and bottle aging. And more evidence still with the breathtaking combination of ripeness and freshness of the Blaufränkisch Spirtzerberg 2015 from Muhr van der Niepoort in the small Carnuntum region with 96 points and 22nd rank. Roland Velich of Moric was originally a casino croupier, Uwe Schiefer started out as a sommelier and Dorli Muhr still runs a successful PR company in Vienna. The Austrian red wine revolution is driven by outsiders!
Some readers familiar with the wines of Austria will ask where the nation’s dessert wines are. The JamesSuckling.com Top 100 lists exclude very limited production wines, so you don’t face an impossible challenge finding the wines we rank highest. It was (only) for this reason that, for example, the stunning collection of Auslese and Beerenauslese wines from Emmerich Knoll in the Wachau, a handful of which rated 95–100 points, were excluded. However, Knoll’s lush and creamy dry Riesling Loibner Vinothekfüllung Smaragd 2017 rated 98 points and ranked 9th.
Our highest-ranking dessert wine is the Welschriesling Trockenbeerenauslese Nummer 9 2015 from Kracher in Burgenland, where production volumes for these wines are generally higher than in the Danube Valley. Enormous citrusy freshness pulls you into the center of this dessert-wine quasar that’s packed with tropical fruit character. It rated 99 points and ranked 4th in our best Austrian wines of 2018 list. It too offers great value for this astronomically high quality.— Stuart Pigott, senior editor
