Roter Veltliner Ried Steinberg 1.ÖTW 2024

The Roter Veltliner Ried Steinberg 1.ÖTW 2024 from Fritsch is a dry white wine from the Wagram that puts spice ahead of fruit. Pale golden yellow with slightly green reflections, expressive on the nose: ripe red apples with their skins, nuts, herbs, a touch of curry and mineral smoke, along with quince paste, apricot, mirabelle plum, almonds and honey.

The Ried Steinberg is a steep, southeast-facing vineyard of slate, loess and granite at 310 to 330 metres altitude. The Wagram, 60 kilometres west of Vienna, owes its name to the terrace at the edge of the Danube valley, a fossil coastline of the former Tethys Sea. The powerful loess deposits from the Ice Age are interspersed with calcareous marine sediment and store water and nutrients like a sponge.

Only around 260 hectares of Roter Veltliner remain in Austria. The variety is not related to Grüner Veltliner, though both are thought to descend from Savagnin (Traminer). The 16-year-old vines supply the material for a wine that was spontaneously fermented and aged in a 2,000-litre acacia barrel.

Spicy, powerful and full-bodied, with a creamy texture, again a slightly smoky spiciness, plenty of yellow and slightly red fruit, tangy-piquant notes and a subtle Traminer exoticism. A fine acid structure and fine tannin provide grip, and the finish is substantial. The result is a fine balance between invigorating freshness and substance.

Karl Fritsch has been farming his 25 hectares biodynamically since 2006 and is a founding member of respekt-BIODYN. At the end of 2007, Weinberghof Fritsch in Oberstockstall was admitted to the circle of Austria's traditional wine estates. In the Ried Steinberg, his Roter Veltliner regularly achieves 94 Falstaff points.