2007 Riesling Steiner Hund Spätlese trocken

The 2007 Riesling Steiner Hund Reserve is the current offering of this bottling from Nikolaihof, and the 2008 was in fact still in cask at the time of my June visit. Lemon and orange rinds; high-toned green herbs; and intimations of crushed stone lend the aromas a penetratingly pungent cast and persist across this wine's sumptuous, glossy, and (even at only 12.5% alcohol) glycerin-enhanced palate - brimming with fresh white peach and grapefruit and underlain with rich nut oils - and into a finish of kaleidoscopic, shimmeringly interactive complexity and irresistible, saliva-inducing savor. This will be worth following for at least the better part of two decades. It will come as no surprise by now to learn that once again in 2010, the Saahs family began picking well ahead of any other Austrian growers of Riesling and Gruner Veltliner of whom I am aware; nor that they attribute their having been able to begin already in mid-September (!) to the rigorously biodynamic regimen that they have followed since long before all but a handful of wine lovers much less wine growers even knew to what the word -biodynamic- referred. It did surprise me when Nikolaus Saahs described this year's crop level as "nearly normal," but then, absence of botrytis in this vintage no doubt accounts for a significant enhancement of total juice. Extended lees contact and in some instances, it seems, malo-lactic transformation helped tame the acids, which are analytically lower in the finished wines I tasted than in most other Danubian Austrian whites of the 2010 vintage. (A subsequent report on other Nikolaihof wines tasted over the past several years but prior to this June will among other things account for a couple of revelatory recent releases in their "Vinothek" series of wines bottled after many years in cask.) Importer: Terry Theise Estate Selections, imported by Michael Skurnik Wines, Inc., Syosset, NY; tel. (516) 677-9300