The Hirtzberger 2010 Gruner Veltliner Smaragd Honivogl possesses a combination of creaminess and lift, almost honeyed richness (even this year, in Honivogl there was some botrytis) with refreshment that as so often really set this bottling apart from its siblings. The 14.5% alcohol is evident solely as glycerin-enhancement and satisfying amplitude. Winter pear, raw hazelnut, beetroot, and green bean are suffused with stone and salt and wreathed in subtle, bittersweet floral perfume. This long-finishing beauty ought to be worth chasing for 15 or more years. Given the penchant at this address for late harvest; considerable skin contact; and must aeration, I was not surprised to learn from Franz Hirtzberger Junior that only their Riesling Federspiel had been at all de-acidified. “If there’d been even a bit more hanging out there though,” he notes “then we wouldn’t have made it” – i.e. acheived ripe grapes. “We learned our lesson from 1996,” as Hirtzberger Senior saw it, namely not to harvest – despite ongoing crop loss and fear of ignoble rot (though in this case that didn’t materialize) – until the acids finally began to diminish and the skins to properly ripen. Importer: Vin Divino, Chicago, IL; tel. (773) 334-6700

Gorgeously ripe fruit, full of pear, green plum and exotic spices. The wine is rich, with its smooth, rounded texture that is pierced with mouthwatering acidity and laced with steeliness. This is a wine with considerable aging potential. ——R.V.(10/1/2011)—— 94