Nikolaihof | Wachau | Vom Stein, Riesling Smaragd trocken | 2014 | 1500ml | bio

Description

Product description for Nikolaihof Vom Stein, Riesling Smaragd trocken 2014 (bio)

Nikolaihof Vom Stein, Riesling Smaragd trocken 2014 is a dry white wine made from Riesling grapes in the Wachau region of Austria.

Keywords: Nikolaihof Vom Stein, Riesling Smaragd trocken 2014 bio Wachau Austria

Wine Advocate

Score: 92

The 2014 Ried Vom Stein Riesling Smaragd is clear but also clearly matured on the nose that reveals notes of pancake strips intermingled with a delicate flintiness and mirabelle plum and poppyseed notes in melted butter. Round, quite rich and intense on the palate, this is a medium-bodied, quite tannic and little astringent Riesling that drinks well as a matured wine today but won’t improve from here. It is tight and salty and gets its roundness from the maturity. 12.5% stated alcohol. Natural cork. Archive Release 2024. Tasted in January 2025.
Stephan Reinhardt

Vinous

Score: 97

In a departure from usual Nikolaihof practice – given that it had by then been filtered and assembled into tank – I was offered my first taste of this wine shortly before the initial, December 2017 bottling. The wine was exciting then, and when re-tasted repeatedly in the course of 2018 had only gained in stature. Moss, lemon zest, peach kernel and toasted grain on the nose put me in mind of a relatively austere white Burgundy. But that sense of kinship dims with the emergence of high-toned hints of lavender and mint, mouthwatering ocean breeze and a sappy, juicy abundance of fresh lime and white peach juiciness on the silken palate. There are also faint hints of kirsch and mothball such as one can encounter from time to time at this address and to whose volatility some tasters might object. The finish is transparent to a veritable carpet of mineral matter – albeit a levitating, vibrantly undulating one! Crushed stone, alkali, mineral salts and iodine combine with herbal and protein-rich flavors for something approximating a blend of oyster liquor and clam stock that set my salivary glands to palpitating. And now for the astonishing kicker: This remarkable stuff filled the largest cask in the Nikolaihof cellar, with a capacity of 12,000 liters! Half was bottled in 2017 and 2018; the rest will be held back – let’s hope eventually to inform a Vinothek offering. “The only sense in which this wine needed to be bottled,” noted Saahs, “was in order to avoid Vom Stein Smaragd temporarily dropping from our price list and to make room in the cellar. It wasn’t the phases of the moon calling the shots,” he added with a sly grin. (Re-tasted alongside, the corresponding 2013 showed at the upper end of my earlier projection. But despite issuing from one of the two finest Wachau vintages that it has been my privilege to taste as young wines, that 2013 doesn’t quite reach the complexity nor exhibit the clarity and energy of this 2014 – not for now, at least.)
— David Schildknecht
Drinking window: 2018 – 2030
Review date: Dec 2018

Producer website: https://www.nikolaihof.at/en/home/