Our Wine Choice: Josef Jamek Weissburgunder Wachau Smaragd 2022

It seemed fitting to pick an Austrian wine for this week’s wine choice after Senior Editor Stuart Pigott and I concluded JamesSuckling.com’s annual trip to the country. Although the highest-rated wines we tasted were mostly from the star varieties riesling and gruner veltliner, the Josef Jamek Weissburgunder Wachau Smaragd 2022 is produced from a variety that originated from France: pinot blanc, or as it is known in the German-speaking world, weissburgunder.

Josef Jamek is a top producer in lower Austria’s Wachau valley. The fourth-generation Jameks, Julia and her husband Herwig (both of whom are also medical doctors), have been in charge of the winemaking since 2012, keeping to great grandfather Josef Jamek’s pioneering work of focusing on quality dry wines. Grapes for their weissburgunder are grown on stony, weathered soils in a section of Ried Hochrain, one of the terraced, steep hillside vineyards sites that Josef Jamek are known for alongside Ried Klaus, Ried Achleiten and Ried Liebenberg.

If you think pinot blanc is one of the less exciting grape varieties, this full-bodied expression will change your mind. It falls in the serious Smaragd style category (only for wines from the Vinea Wachau winegrowers’ association). Picked from well-ripened grapes, it’s layered and concentrated, with complex aromas of tropical and stone fruit with spice, smoke and honey undertones. The concentration and structure will allow it to go a very long way.

Weissburgunder had been one of the mainstay varieties in the region, along with chardonnay and muskateller, before the rise in popularity of gruner veltliner. And as Dr. Herwig Jamek told me, perhaps with its naturally higher acidity it will make a comeback in the face of a warming future.

– Claire Nesbitt, Associate Editor