Nikolaihof | Wachau | Vinothek, Riesling trocken | 2002 | 1500ml | bio

Description

Product description for Nikolaihof Vinothek, Riesling trocken 2002 (bio)

Bottled in 2018. Christoph Raffelt: If one could call a Wachau Riesling classic, then this 2002 Vinothek is it. After 16 years in the bottle, this Riesling from Mauthern seems as virile and full of life as a youth of the same age who has spent most of his life between the sports field and the grand piano in the music room. The wine is filled with great vibrancy and excitement. From the first creamy yet firmly structured sip, it expands across the palate into a long finish. A fine, unifying acidity is always present, as is a phenolic note that lends the wine great seriousness, as well as a range of earthy, stony, and spicy notes that range toward licorice and wax, providing plenty of substance. The wine remains juicy and clear with subtle tones of stone and pome fruit. Fruit is not the main focus here. Structure and texture characterize this wine; transparency and clarity prevail here, where all too often the emphasis is on lush fruit. Despite its 16 years, one has the feeling that the wine is just at the beginning and not in the prime of its life – even if it is already a huge pleasure to participate in its development.

Information about the wine

The winery’s bottling is a Riesling Smaragd im Weingebirge, which, in contrast to the 2002 Smaragd, which was bottled much earlier, was stored for a particularly long time in 3,500-liter oak barrels and is bottled after 16 years. The “Im Weingebirge” vineyard is a gently sloping vineyard with an elevation of 207 to 223 meters, located directly above Mautern and solely owned by the Saahs family. The soil consists of paragneiss with a loess layer. The location is very sunny, with over 2,500 hours of exposure a year.

Colour

light golden yellow

Nose

The wine shop bottlings, indeed all of the Saahs family’s late bottlings, are impressively fine and self-contained wines, whose aromas alone convey a sense of nobility rather than expressiveness. At the beginning, one finds subtle notes of beeswax, a herbal extract like that found in the best genevers, along with notes of freshly sliced, firm apricot and grated stone. With exposure to air, the yellow stone fruit becomes increasingly opulent and deeper, and then the sixteen years of aging slowly becomes apparent.

Palate

If one could call a Wachau Riesling classic, then this 2002 Vinothek is it. After 16 years in the bottle, this Riesling from Mauthern seems as virile and full of life as a youth of the same age who has spent most of his life between the sports field and the grand piano in the music room. The wine is filled with great vibrancy and excitement. From the first creamy yet firm sip, it expands across the palate into a long finish. A fine, unifying acidity is always present, as is a phenolic note that lends the wine great seriousness, as well as a range of earthy, stony, and spicy notes that range toward licorice and wax, providing plenty of substance. The wine remains juicy and clear, with subtle tones of stone and pome fruit. Fruit is not the main focus here. Structure and texture are what characterize this wine; transparency and clarity prevail here, where all too often the emphasis is on lush fruit. Despite its 16 years, one has the feeling that the wine is just at the beginning and not in the prime of its life – even though it is already immensely enjoyable to be part of its development.

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Keywords: Nikolaihof Vinothek, Riesling trocken 2002 bio Wachau Austria

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