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Day 4: Tasting at Weingut Prager

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Arnt Egil Nordlien

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Day 4: Tasting at Weingut Prager

by Arnt Egil Nordlien » Fri Oct 13, 2006 3:19 am

On our second day in Wachau we visited one of my favourite producers in the area; Weingut Prager. We was met by Toni Bodenstein who talked a lot about both wine and history of the region as we tasted through the 2005-vintage.

Grüner Veltliner Zwerithaler smaragd 2005
Vines planted 1967. Yellow colour. Fine nose with hints of apricot and slight spice. Some mineral, but more fruity. Concentrated in the mouth. Much fruit and fine hints of grüner veltliner-spicyness. High acids and strutured wine. Very fine GV, but perhaps lacking a little mineral depth.

Grüner Veltliner Achleiten smaragd 2005
Yellow colour. Here is the minerality an complexity missing in the Zwerithaler. The fruit shows more citrus-notes. Also a concentrated and acidic GV in the mouth. But this is more elegant and with racy minerality in the mouth. Great wine.

Grüner Veltliner Achleiten Stockkultur 2005
Vines planted 1936-37. 14000 vines/Ha. The Stockkultur uses vines that have an older way of binding the canes. It is an experiment from Toni Bodenstein. Yellow colour. Sweeter nose, more friut, apricot, more spice, but also with great minerality and complexity. Highly concentrated GV in the mouth with a lot of extract. Really powerful wine. 14% alc. and more than 10 g/L. acids explains Toni Bodenstein. But in it's hugeness there is also elegance and a raciness to find here. Long taste. Tremendous wine and one of the very best GV's I have tasted. Great future.

Riesling Steinriegl federspiel 2005
Straw colour. From soil with gneiss. Yellow colour. Flowery nose with some firn and minerality. Medium bodied in the mouth. Suffers a bit for being served after the big GV, but this much lesser wine has a fine flowery fruit with some mineral and firn. Not as fine and a little more rustic.Fine acids and decent length. Fine federspiel for the price.

Riesling Kellerberg smaragd 2005
Straw colour. This is the more mineral approach of riesling. Racy, fine nose. Some citrus. In the mouth a slimmer approach. Mineral and elegant. A little subdued and closed. Not as complex right now. Acidic finish. Fine wine, but needs time.

Riesling Hollerin smaragd 2005
Straw colour. "The warm vineyard", and quite the opposite wine from the Kellerberg. Shows a lot of fruit, some mineral. Pure and more opulent riesling in the mouth. The least acidic wine of the evening. Medium length. Sharming and more easy-going style.

Riesling Achleiten smaragd 2005
Straw colour. Mineral and complex nose. Some spice and citrus. Fullbodied riesling in the mouth with high extract. Fine mineral fruit, complex and racy. Young and a bit closed. Needs time. Great wine.

Riesling Wachstum Bodenstein smaragd 2005
From vines planted 400 meters above the water-level. Viens trained low to the ground to extract heat. This vineyard was planted in 1990 by Toni Bodenstein. People though he was mad planting vines so high in the Wachau. Hence the name of the vineyard that Toni Bodenstein gave it. Straw colour. Mineral, citrusy nose. Not as complex showing today, but with great potensial. Fullbodied, but very elegant style of riesling smaragd in the mouth. A step up in quality from the Achleiten. More pure and racy and finer acidity. Also closed at this stage. Needs time. Great wine.

Riesling Klaus 2005
From the vineyard next to Achleiten with paragneiss and a higher content of potassium. This year the Klaus stopped fermenting at 26 g/L. residual sugar. Toni Bodenstein did not want to restart the fermentation with additives, so it is not totally dry and therefore no smaragd this year. The wine has a yellow colour, mineral nose with some more apricot and a little sweetness. Powerful in the mouth, much fruit, slight fat in the entrance, som sweetness, but fine balance with cleansing acids. Fine fruit, mineral with some apricot and citrus. Good length. I like this wine a lot and find the sweetness suits this wine very nicely. Great wine.

I really liked the wines from Weingut Prager this year. I am normally a fan of Prager. This year the wines are big and concentrated with great acidity-levels. Both a mark of the 2005-vintage in Wachau. Toni Bodenstein seems to have balanced the aromas of the wines well so they are not too ripe, but elegant and finely tuned. The experiment with the Stockkultur gave a really interesting grüner veltliner and for me the wine of the tasting.
Last edited by Arnt Egil Nordlien on Tue Oct 17, 2006 12:19 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Michael Pronay

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Re: Day 4: Tasting at Weingut Prager

by Michael Pronay » Sun Oct 15, 2006 7:42 am

Note that Veltliner Achleiten Stockkultur also is "lieblich" (semi-sweet) with its 28 g/L.

Btw, we tasted five of the wines in mid-July (blind amongst 1,480 others), and these were our scores:

90 . . . GV Zwerithaler Smaragd
95 . . . RI Achleiten Smaragd
96 . . . RI Klaus
96 . . . GV Achleiten Stockkultur
98 . . . RI WAchstum Bodenstein Smaragd
Ceterum censeo corticem esse delendam
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Arnt Egil Nordlien

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Re: Day 4: Tasting at Weingut Prager

by Arnt Egil Nordlien » Tue Oct 17, 2006 12:19 pm

Michael Pronay wrote:Note that Veltliner Achleiten Stockkultur also is "lieblich" (semi-sweet) with its 28 g/L.


Thanks for the correction. I noticed some sweetness (very well balanced), but though it still was a smaragd.

I'll correct.
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Re: Day 4: Tasting at Weingut Prager

by Jenise » Tue Oct 17, 2006 12:38 pm

Arnt, I don't have a lot of useful comments to make to let you know how much I've enjoyed your trip notes, so I'm butting in with just a thank you. I especially love Austrian white wines and you're making me quite envious.
My wine shopping and I have never had a problem. Just a perpetual race between the bankruptcy court and Hell.--Rogov
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Bob Parsons Alberta

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Re: Day 4: Tasting at Weingut Prager

by Bob Parsons Alberta » Tue Oct 17, 2006 2:21 pm

Jenise wrote:Arnt, I don't have a lot of useful comments to make to let you know how much I've enjoyed your trip notes, so I'm butting in with just a thank you. I especially love Austrian white wines and you're making me quite envious.


Yeah, I agree here. Tasting notes such as these are terrific reference pointers down the road.

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