Hannes Sabathi - Riesling Spätlese 2021

This year began with a long winter with a lot of snow and rain. The grapes were nearly perfect with a nice fruitiness and good acidity. Overall the yields were 1/3 less than average, but the quality was excellent! All in all 2021 was a great vintage with good ripeness, a pronounced freshness and huge flavor variety. All grapes were hand harvested as dictated by the landscape.

Soil Type(s): Opok, the regional, common name for a typical Styrian marl soil, made of limestone marl. These are formerly muddy sea deposits into which rivers washed coarser material such as sand and gravel. Opok is a very dense subsoil that is difficult to work with.

Fermentation took place with the use of native yeasts in old 500L barrels with a whole berry press. The wine was then matured in neutral barrels on their full lees without sulfur addition for 6 months. The wine was then racked, sulfured, and just before being bottled, fined one last time through a rocky substance called kieselguhr trapping any left solids in the micro-crystalline rock structure. The resulting wines are absolutely flawless with diamond-like brilliance to the eye.

Grapes are grown organically on the sides of steep mountain slopes in the southern corner of the country. Styria (Steiermark) produces just 5% of Austria's wine, but even that number is impressive considering just a generation or two ago there was almost no grapes being grown here. In the past, people tried to plant grapes on the flat valley lands. Due to the humidity, these had bad rot problems. After the anti-freeze scandal of the mid 80s, folks began experimenting in the region. This led to vineyards being planted on mountain slopes at high elevation to combat humidity. Riesling is a fairly new venture for Hannes, and a small part of what he does. We hope to convince him to do more! The Riesling comes from Ried Woracziczky in Leutschach and is equivalent to a Regional level wine in Burgundy or an Gutswein in German VDP classification. The wine would be categorized higher, but Riesling is not considered a noble grape in Styria!

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