2015 Maria Hick, Riesling Smaragd "Ried Stiegelstal"

Austria’s spectacular Wachau region, a verdant stretch of the Danube given UNESCO World Heritage status, is thick with families whose winemaking roots (and family properties) go back many centuries. The profundity of that history and the intricacies of the local terroir are reflected in the region’s inimitable wines, which carry not just village and vineyard names but their own Wachau-specific ripeness designations (Steinfeder; Federspiel; Smaragd). Of those, it is Smaragd which is the most lauded, producing bone-dry wines of power, complexity, and long aging ability. So today’s discovery hails from a single vineyard of prime Wachau terroir, is made by a top winemaking talent, and has a decade of aging already. All of that for sub $40!?! Yup, it’s a wine grand slam, and the perfect way to kick off 2025! If you look at a vineyard map of the Wachau, the area known as the Arnsdorf is toward the western end of the region, near Spitz, on the opposite side of the Danube. The vineyards of Obe