Etna Visionaries, A Zweigelt Rises and the Soul of Tyrrell’s: Weekly Tasting Report (Sept 13-19)

This week's tasting report covers 639 wines from 12 countries, with Senior Editor Stuart Pigott and Associate Editor Claire Nesbitt digging deeper into their Austrian motherlode and James continuing to taste widely across the Italian spectrum. James rated more than 220 Brunello di Montalcinos over the past week, mostly from the excellent 2019 vintage, which will be released in January 2024. He will have his report on the year and the winners – he found a number of 100-point 2019 Brunellos – in the very near future.

James also discovered a handful of late released or re-released Brunello riservas, including his top-rated Col d'Orcia Brunello di Montalcino Poggio al Vento Riserva 2016. It shows all the structure and intensity of a 2016 Brunello, a year that is known for its tannin tension and focus. Yet the red, which is being released now, also has real complexity and depth already due to the extra bottle age at the winery.

Something slightly different is the re-release of two riservas from the historical winery of Biondi-Santi – the 2010 and 1988. They are very typical of top wines from the estate before it was sold in 2016 to the family-owned French investment firm EPI; so, the two wines have slightly elevated acidities and hard tannins but there is something engaging and attractive about them. The EPI team now in charge is making much more refined and precise wines, and they have also made some excellent improvements in the cellar and vineyards.

James was equally impressed with a quick trip to Sicily’s Etna region a week before, where he visited the wineries of Frank Cornelissen and Passopisciaro. Both places have been visionaries in maintaining old-vine vineyards and planting new ones since the early 2000s. James spent a couple of hours walking through vineyards with  Cornelissen, who is Belgian and a former wine merchant. He tasted and rated a new red from a vineyard in Contrada Scimonetta and gave it a high rating. All of Cornelissen’s wines are bright and pure with a vivid transparency due to his low-intervention winemaking and no wood aging. Check out the ratings below.

The team at Passopisciaro, including the son of the late owner Andrea Franchetti, Giordano Franchetti, is less worried about wood as well as international varieties in their vineyards like chardonnay and petit verdot. But they make equally compelling reds and whites as Cornelissen. The 2021 chardonnay called Contrada PC is one of the best whites James had from Etna this year.

Also, don’t miss other wines from Sicily in this report, including the clear, complex and delicious reds from the coveted winery of Occhipinti, which made a stunning light red from frappato. And the new bottling of the intense, crisp and minerally grillo from Feudo Maccari is something all of us can enjoy especially in the summer.

A ZWEIGELT ACHIEVES GREATNESS

This week also brings the results of the second half of Senior Editor Stuart Pigott and Associate Editor Claire Nesbitt’s trip to Austria. One of the focuses is red wines, and the results say a great deal about the current state of red winemaking in Austria.

Although the most widely planted red wine grape in Austria is the indigenous Zweigelt (a crossing of St. Laurent with blaufrankisch, sometimes referred to as rotburger) this grape seldom shines as a varietal wine. The Markowitsch Carnuntum Ried Kirschweingarten EL 2021 is a varietal Zweigelt that achieves greatness thanks to its rare aromatic complexity and silkiness.

Often the varietal wines of this grape have a one-dimensional cherry aroma and lack some tension on the palate. For us it shows best in blends, and again Markowitsch shone with his powerful and polished Markowitsch Carnuntum Ried Rosenberg EL 2021. It is a beautifully crafted cuvee of Zweigelt and blaufrankisch with the French merlot grape.

The Austro-Hungarian blaufrankisch grape, which is widely planted in the expansive Burgenland region and the much smaller Carnuntum, majors in expressive spicy aromas and tension between tannins, acidity and fruit on the palate. The Moric Blaufrankisch Burgenland Lutzmannsburg Alte Reben 2021 is an almost perfect example of this. It has enormous aromatic complexity – everything from floral notes to pepper and licorice – and the super-mineral acidity pushes the finish out toward the edge of the known red wine universe.

Alte Reben means “old vines” in German, and these vines from before the age of modern clonal selection tend to give wines with originality and finesse. If you are looking for a less expensive way into this fascinating grape variety, then try the more widely distributed Moric Blaufränkisch Burgenland Reserve 2021, which is also a great wines and extremely expressive.

Sadly, Stuart also found many blaufrankisch reds wines that were rather oaky and/or slightly overextracted. In fact, we feel these rather common weaknesses hold back Austrian reds as an entire category. The main reason for this situation is that a segment of the domestic market still wants their red wines that way. That’s their right, of course, but for us it’s like going back to the 1990s. What about a red wine journey to the 21st century?

2020 is a challenging red wine vintage in Austria, but that didn’t stop a couple of the leading winemakers from achieving excellent results. Almost all of Hannes Schuster’s 2020 reds from Burgenland are remarkable wines, having a rare depth and harmony for the vintage. The most astonishing of these was the Schuster Blaufränkisch St. Margarethen 2020 with its mysterious balsamic and spicy character, great length and finesse.

The 2020 blaufränkisch red wines from Dorli Muhr in the Carnuntum region must also be mentioned, particularly the extraordinary quartet of wines from sub-sites of the Spitzerberg. This is a limestone ridge  that runs from east to west and close to the border between Austria and Slovakia. Much of it is a nature reserve with vineyards on the south-facing slope. The soil is unusually sandy for limestone, and apart from the vine only scrub can grow in it.

The production of the Dorli Muhr Blaufränkisch Carnuntum Spitzerberg-Obere Spitzer 2020 is very limited, but this a unique wine that marries concentrated berry aromas with beautifully integrated tannins, much in the fashion of a Grand Cru red Burgundy. However, the wine is sleeker and more tensile than anything from Burgundy. This is great achievement for a self-taught winemaker whose day job is co-directing the Wine + Partners PR company in Vienna. Her new winery signals serious ambition!

Burgenland is not well known for dry whites, but Stuart tasted some astonishing examples. Andi Kollwentz has an excellent reputation for sophisticated chardonnay and 2021 is probably his best vintage to date. The star of the range is the Kollwentz Chardonnay Burgenland Gloria 2021, which has a fabulously silky texture and a super-long, delicately chalky finish. The 2009 vintage of this wine still shows extremely well, so here are chardonnays that you can cellar without worrying about premature oxidation.

Gruner vetliner is Austria’s signature grape (and the most widely planted grape in the Alpine republic), and intimately associated with the wine regions of the Danube Valley. However, there’s also a substantial acreage in Burgenland. With his Schuster Grüner Veltliner Ried Ungerberg 2022,  Hannes Schuster shows this grape is capable of great originality in Burgenland. Intensely flinty, it builds to a staggering crescendo of minerality on the medium-bodied palate. And it tastes nothing like the wines of this grape and vintage from the Danube!

Even more diversity can be found in Burgenland with sweet wines from near the shores of Lake Neusiedlersee. Kracher's wines in the trockenbeerenauslese category are some of our top scorers this week. These are made from hand-selected grapes, picked late into the season, that have been positively affected by noble rot – the "good" type of botrytis. The grapes are shriveled and are highly concentrated in aromas, sugars and acidity, thanks to the unique microclimate created by Lake Neusiedlersee and the many other small lakes in the area. These bodies of water help create dense fog in the evenings and mornings before sunny and dry afternoons – the conditions essential to the development of noble rot.

We couldn't decide between the luscious Kracher Welschriesling Burgenland Trockenbeerenauslese Nummer 6 2020 and the highly aromatic Kracher Rosenmuskateller Burgenland Trockenbeerenauslese Nummer 5 2020. Both are luscious and intense: the welschriesling with a herbal and salty quality that gives it so much life, while the rosenmuskateller is uniquely fragrant with candied pink fruit and flowers, as well as an extremely long finish.

Almost as impressive is the Kracher Burgenland Trockenbeerenauslese Nummer 4 Grande Cuvée 2020, which is a blend of chardonnay and riesling, fermented and matured in new oak barriques and Slavonian barrels, respectively. It has immense structure behind the richness, giving it a long life ahead. This is Kracher's signature wine and the only blend in the collection, and it is also more widely distributed.

Moving further south, Stuart and Claire tasted stunning dry whites from the Steiermark region. Here, sauvignon blanc reigns supreme in an expression of its own – a far cry from the exotically tropical, grassy-green or silex-restrained expressions you find elsewhere. The best of the sauvignons often come from GSTK "grand cru" sites, such as the Wohlmuth Sauvignon Blanc Südsteiermark Ried Edelschuh GSTK 2021 and Tement Sauvignon Blanc Südsteiermark Ried Zieregg Kapelle GSTK 2020, which impressed the most out of all the Steiermark wines we tasted with their length and focus. The Wohlmuth Ried Edelschuh has so much floral and tea-like fragrance, and is made in limited quantites from a total of 0.75 hectares of vines that are 40 to 70 years old. The Tement Ried Zieregg Kapelle, in contrast, has subtle smoky and burnt sage undertones, with a delicious creamy texture.

Also check out some fantastic 2019 sauvignon blancs from Frauwallner and Gross, as well as a game-changing dry riesling, the Wohlmuth Riesling Südsteiermark Ried Edelschuh GSTK 2021.

TASTING TYRRELL'S

Senior Editor Ned Goodwin MW was in Australia’s Hunter Valley over the past week tasting at Tyrrell’s winery, which is among the oldest, continually operating wineries in the country and is still in the original family’s hands. Founded in 1858, Tyrrell’s today is run by Chris Tyrrell, with chief winemaker Andrew Spinaze and Chris’s father, Bruce, ensuring that all is carried out with a steady hand and a strict fealty to a suite of enviable plantings, almost all dry grown, that constitute the soul of the estate.

Tyrrell’s plantings include the HVD Vineyard, which comprises silty alluvials and ferrous loams planted to semillon and what is putatively the oldest plot of chardonnay in the world. Bruce Tyrrell calls the vines “the old girls.” Chardonnay cuttings are used for propagation, although it is the semillon that is the Hunter’s postage stamp. Here, it boasts a Chablis-like wet pebble stone feel, as opposed to the meager, cracking soils of the Belford site – a fortress of deep sand and gum trees, or the “kooch of local flora,” as Bruce calls them.

Belford services semillon with chomp melded to lemongrass freshness. Ned enthuses that Belford boasts “kaleidoscopic textural persuasion” often rivaling the venerated Vat 1 semillon bottling. Stevens Vineyard, meanwhile, is on sandy clay, capable of delivering intensity belied by a balletic lightness and more open structural weave. Stevens Semillon tastes like freshly made lemonade and barley sugar, according to Ned. These are capable of extended cellaring in good vintages, making Hunter reds and whites among the longest-lived wines in the world.

2023 was such a vintage. Another cool La Niña year, there was a deluge during spring before things dried out to promote a prolonged, dry growing season. Forensic viticulture and fruit sorting were imperatives.

Bruce Tyrrell opined that the last four years have been so wet and cool that despite successes, “the vineyard has gone back 10 years.” The other caveats: low yields furthered by hail on Jan. 5 and 6, devastating certain sites including the celebrated Johnno’s, where no wine was made.

Tyrrell’s crown jewels are the so-called Sacred Sites. These are own rooted and older than 100 years, largely nestled into the foothills of Brokenback, a mountain that Ned climbed as a kid. These meander to either side, up and down, by the heritage-listed winery, a place of corrugated iron stained by the elements and floors of swept earth and large oak, with nary a barrique in site. Fittingly, the savory, mid-weighted lilt of the reds is hewn of long macerations and gentle agitation.

Sacred Sites include Ned’s more elegant favorite, the 4 Acres Shiraz, planted in 1879; 8 Acres Shiraz, of 1892, just below, with similar yellowish red clay over limestone; the ancient chardonnay plot in HVD from 1908; Johnno’s Semillon and Johnno’s Shiraz, also planted in 1908 on sandy loams. Finally, there is the Old Patch Shiraz, planted in 1867 on a steep, cooler site of darker soils and shade from the looming mountain above.

– Stuart Pigott, Claire Nesbitt, James Suckling and Ned Goodwin MW contributed reporting.

The list of wines below is comprised of bottles tasted and rated during the past week by James Suckling and the other tasters at JamesSuckling.com. They include many latest releases not yet available on the market, but which will be available soon. Some will be included in upcoming tasting reports.

Note: You can sort the wines below by country, vintage, score and alphabetically by winery name. You can also search for specific wines in the search bar.