The Wachau Sweet Spot, Great Value Bobals and More Napa Classics: Weekly Tasting Report (Sept 25 – Oct 1)

Senior Editor Stuart Pigott’s trip to Austria during the first half of September was marked by extremes. During his first days, temperatures peaked at 36 degrees Celsius, or just shy of 100 Fahrenheit, but two weeks later when he left for home, his flight was cancelled due to Storm Boris, which brought 400 millimeters, or almost 16 inches, of rain over a period of just five days. Flooding was less severe than in the Tuscan winemaking region of Bolgheri, but cellars full of water is not what winemakers dream of during harvest!

There were similarly great extremes between the best and weakest wines of the 2023 vintage Stuart tasted during those weeks, and no region made this plainer than Austria's most famous appellation, the Wachau. Clearly, the 2023 vintage in Austria is often great, but occasionally it is also frustrating.

On the one hand you have the amazing vibrancy of the twin, perfect dry rieslings from F.X. Pichler, both of which are medium-bodied with less than 13 percent alcohol. The F.X. Pichler Riesling Wachau Ried Steinertal 2023 is the pinnacle of a racy, stony riesling with incredible Amalfi lemon and wild herb freshness. The F.X. Pichler Riesling Wachau Ried Kellerberg is all about the heart of the peach and mango, yet super-focused and the ultimate in minerality. For Stuart, 2023 is the best vintage ever for winemaker Lucas Pichler, so scroll down to catch his other riesling and gruner veltliner stars.

At the other end of the scale to these pristine beauties are a number of wines with very high alcohol content that taste hot as a result. Actually, that’s not surprising when you see 15.5 percent alcohol on the label of a gruner veltliner! And Stuart tasted a bunch of dry rieslings and gruner veltliners with 14.5 percent plus alcohol. Some winemakers managed to keep these wines tasting fresh, but the question is how they will taste in one to three years’ time as the youthful fruit fades and mature aromas start to take over. Even cool locations such as Spitz in the region's west were affected by this.

As the wines from producers like F.X. Pichler showed, the high alcoholic content of many wines was not just a result of the excellent 2023 vintage, but also had a lot to do with the harvest dates that winemakers picked. But this wasn’t much of an issue for the perfect-scoring Franz Hirtzberger Riesling Austria Ried Singerriedel Smaragd 2023, which was late-picked in the tradition of this winery and has incredibly concentrated stone and citrus fruit aromas as a result. However, it also has a super-cool and bright finish that echoes almost endlessly. Franz Hirtzberger Jr. really nailed the winemaking with this great Wachau rieseling masterpiece that sits very comfortably at 13.5 percent alcohol. That’s not low, so the problem wines resulted from too much alcohol and certain weaknesses in the winemaking.

Robert Bodenstein of the Prager winery was another winemaker who hit the sweet spot where concentration and fabulous balance meet, and Stuart thinks it is his best vintage to date. The incredible Prager Riesling Wachau Klaus Smaragd 2023 is a deep well of geological mystery that reminded Stuart of the legendary 1990 vintage of this wine (sold under the Auslese designation, although dry in taste). The super long and super vibrant finish is amazing. Here you have a great example of winemaking deftly adapting to the new climatic situation in the region.

Other long-established Wachau producers such as Emmerich Knoll and Josef James also shined. However, once you move into the ranks of less renowned producers, then you need to study the notes below particularly carefully. Of particular note is Alzinger, which is also based in Wachau. Their Alzinger Riesling Ried Steinertal Smaragd 2023 is the best we have tasted from them It’s from a site of lower average temperature sand greater diurnal shifts, with cold air coming down through the valleys.  Even the warm 2023 resulted in a wine that is exceptionally cool and complex, with a wet-stone freshness. Alzinger’s 2023 smaragd gruner veltliner from the same vineyard likewise displays enormous minerality, as well as concentrated green bean and garden herb aromas.

Winemaker Leo Alzinger makes a limited-production (1,000 bottles a year) riesling smaragd from Hohereck vineyard, a slightly warmer site, and the 2023 bottling is full of floral, citrus, peach and spice complexity, retaining mouth-watering freshness with a limey, mineral brightness. Just as impressive is the Riesling Loibenberg Smaragd, a cool expression, both ripe and fresh, showing honey, rosemary and persimmon undertones to the lemon and white-pear aromas.

Look out for both rieslings and gruner veltliners from Pichler-Krutzler, Tegernseerhof and Johann Donabaum in the notes below, all hailing from the Wachau. A top example is Pichler-Krutzler’s medium- to full-bodied Riesling Ried Kellerberg 2023, an agile and energetic expression that evolves from peach fruit to minerals. You’ll also find an excellent 2023 weissburgunder (pinot blanc) in the notes below from Josef Jamek. It's creamy and full-bodied with wonderful depth.

DISTINCTIVE SPANISH BOBALS

In our Hong Kong tasting office, Senior editor Zekun Shuai was struck by the best value wine he has encountered so far this year from Spain, the Bodegas y Viñedos Ponce Bobal Manchuela Pino 2023 – one of three outstanding and individualistic 2023 bobal expressions from winemaker Juan Antonio Ponce, each of which transmits a unique sense of place.

The Pino 2023, which comes from a small, limestone-rich plot with vines over 40 years old, is the meatiest and the most mineral yet floral of them, and only costs about $30. There is also a Rhone-esque touch to its uncompromising brightness marked by tension, linearity and stones.

Bodegas y Viñedos’ La Estrecha 2023, meanwhile, is an old-vine bobal from gravelly-rich soils. It is the most delicate, perfumed and transparent of the three bobals (for some, it could be more nuanced and pinot-like) yet it retains the austerity from bobal in nature, with a mineral tension and texture that’s intrinsic to its fullness. Ponce’s ungrafted, old-vine Pie Franco (P.F.) bobal was the most peppery and spiciest of the trio, with great depth of dark fruit and dried herbs, showing a stemmier character that’s essential to most of Ponce’s reds.

Among the other great (although higher-priced) wines from Spain we tasted over the past week were the 2022 offerings from Terroir Al Limit and Artadi. Despite the challenges of the year, both producers delivered great wines that confirm their reputations and commitment to quality. This is especially true of Artadi’s Viña El Pison 2022. According to Artadi’s Patricia Lopez de Lacalle, the vineyards showed excellent resiliency in overcoming  the heat waves between June and August of 2022.

Artadi’s great consistency in quality, as reflected in their top wines, El Pison and El Carretil, are the best illustrations of how great vineyards can adapt to extreme weather. Even in a blind tasting the two wines stood out, with El Pison showing the best on the palate, with melted, dissolved tannins and a long, minerally finish without much adornment.

For Terroir Al Limit, co-owner Dominik Huber acknowledges that 2022 was a very dry year – “the first of three in a row” – but their wines showed well, as you can see in the tasting notes. And don’t forget the great Ribeira Sacra red, F. Algueira Ribeira Sacra Dolio 2020, which Zekun believes is the best vintage he has tasted so far from this project.

MORE CLASSICS FROM NAPA 2021

High-scoring and age-worthy reds from the outstanding 2021 vintage continued to dominate the latest tastings in California, although Executive Editor Jim Gordon and Associate Editor Ryan Montgomery scored quite a few delicious, respectable 2022 reds as well.

Classic names from Napa – Chappellet and Duckhorn – claimed the two highest scores overall while 29 other reds and three whites earned ratings of 94 points and above. You’ll find 96 choices total in the tasting notes below, but check back weekly for hundreds more results from our recent intensive tasting week at the Napa Valley Vintners office.

The Duckhorn Napa Valley Red Wine The Discussion 2020 is a cabernet sauvignon-dominant blend and the winery’s most expensive bottling. It is layered, however, with a good portion of the winery’s first love, merlot, giving it an ultra-smooth texture and delicious creme de cassis flavors with scarcely noticeable, silky tannins.

In contrast, the similar-scoring Chappellet Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley Pritchard Hill 2022 shows the classic structure, power and freshness of mountain grown fruit from this 67-year-old family estate. It’s full of delicious blackberries and complex cedar, earth, graphite and dried herb flavors. One just a point behind was Chappellet’s Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley Hideaway Vineyard 2022.

Three 2021 reds from Kenzo Estate were nearly as impressive. Their Cabernet Franc Napa Valley Asuka 2021 is succulent and chocolaty but built for aging, the Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley Ai 2021 is rich in cocoa and raspberry syrup notes on suede-like tannins, while the tightly concentrated and full-bodied Napa Valley Murasaki Proprietary Red Wine 2021 could easily reward longer-term cellaring.

Also worth noting is the Neal Family Vineyards Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley Howell Mountain Estate 2021. It’s the first Regenerative Organic Certified Vineyard in Napa Valley, and the icing on the cake for second-generation Napa grape grower Mark Neal, who has been farming grapes since he was a teenager.

Too many wineries scored well with their 2021 reds to mention them all, but you can’t go wrong with the likes of B Cellars, Hertelendy, Charles Krug, Faustini, Keenan and Stewart, as you’ll see in the tasting notes below.

The jury is still out on the overall quality and age-ability of Napa’s 2022 reds in general, largely because of the massive heat dome at the beginning of harvest, when areas including Napa and Sonoma counties experienced some of the hottest and driest days in the history of vine growing. But we uncovered plenty of evidence that good winemakers who made sharp harvest decisions and were in some cases willing to select out a large portion of the crop to increase the quality of the rest produced some excellent bottles.

Arguing that case well are Chappellet, Hertelendy, Clif Family, Grape Culture and several others. In many 2022s, we noted an abundance of ripe, juicy, red and black fruit character, often with a seemingly lighter, tangier texture than in a typical Napa vintage.

– Stuart Pigott, Claire Nesbitt, Zekun Shuai, and Jim Gordon 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.