2019 Malat Riesling - Ried Steinbuhel - Kremstal

The Malat family started making wine in 1722; ninth-generation Michael Malat took over from his pioneering father, Gerald, in 2008. Their home and vineyards are on the south bank of the Danube river in the Kremstal wine region, about an hour northwest of Vienna. The vineyard for this wine is Steinbühl, which means “stone hill”. It is a 1ÖTW (Österreichische Traditionsweingüter Erste Lage), or Premier Cru vineyard site - i.e., one of the top vineyards in the Kremstal. The soils are, well, stony! - technically: granulite bedrock with a deep topsoil of silt and river cobbles and a lot of active limestone. Spontaneous fermentation is in stainless steel vats, followed by 6-8 months of aging on the lees in old 2000-liter barrels.

There is evident yet incipient bottle age, with the famous petrol note that riesling and some other white grapes exhibit as they evolve. And yet there’s also a core of fresh lime and stone fruit, with the power and full dryness of Austrian riesling from the Kremstal… plus the complexity of a Premier Cru. Drink it in a medium-to-large stem with a young cheese (La Tur from the Alta Langa worked well in our enogastronomical experimentation), mushroom dishes (including Charles Phan’s stir-fried baby bok choy with shiitake mushrooms), or salt cod fritters. The wine certainly will repay aging for 5-10 years.