2024 Alzinger, Leo - Riesling Steinertal Smaragd (750ml)
Superb scores for the 2024. Here's the CMS blurb:
2024 Leo Alzinger – Riesling Smaragd "Ried Steinertal" Wachau (750ml)
From one of the Wachau's most quietly revered and collectible estates comes this magnificent single-vineyard Riesling — a wine of breathtaking purity, aristocratic restraint, and genuine greatness. James Suckling awarded the 2024 Steinertal Smaragd 97 Points, describing it as an exceptionally cool and complex expression of the underrated Steinertal site, overflowing with wild-berry, herb, and fern aromas plus a staggering wet-stone freshness — sleek and incredibly focused with a primordial energy that takes your breath away, with decades of aging potential yet so exciting now.
Leo Alzinger is located in Unterloiben, where he owns parcels in two of the great vineyards in this part of the Danube valley — the towering, terraced Loibenberg and the diminutive, hidden Steinertal, which at just 5.5 hectares maintains a distinctly cooler microclimate, with Riesling cultivated on the higher primary-rock-rich parcels. Harvest at Alzinger happens later than his neighbors in Unterloiben — the extra time on the vine doesn't increase sugar levels but pushes physiological ripeness to greater balance. Whole cluster crushing with a short maceration, 24-hour settling, then spontaneous fermentation in stainless steel with a small amount of neutral Austrian oak — winemaking of breathtaking restraint and precision. Alzinger's wines are never forceful or assertive — they are instead amazingly sanguine and calmly transparent, and the Steinertal is their purest expression: pale chartreuse with silver reflections, with a nose of white peach, citrus blossom, crushed stone, and a cool mineral herbaceousness that is purely, unmistakably Wachau. On the palate it is taut, crystalline, and laser-focused — a wine of profound mineral depth and a finish that lingers with saline persistence and quiet, almost meditative grandeur. Cellar for decades, drink with reverence