Riesling Steinriesler 11 Jahre im Holzfass 2004

Nikolaihof, Riesling Steinriesler 2004, Wachau, 11,5 %

The Steinriesler is a Riesling Federspiel vom Stein, which was stored for a particularly long time in 5,000-litre oak barrels before being bottled after 11 years.

White gold with yellow gold highlights

The elegance of this Riesling is already revealed in the nose. It is restrainedly elegant, shows the German Riesling drinker little of the usual Riesling fruit, reveals at most a little citrus fruit, which was pressed into a black tea brew only briefly pulled. Otherwise, the Steinriesler reveals mainly stone and bark. All these rather dark notes, however, are so fine and light that they do not seem gloomy at any time, but rather signal something like groundedness.

On the palate, the Steinriesler shows the typical Nicolaihof tension between brightness, juiciness and freshness on the one hand and profound, mineral-salty, stony and phenolic spiciness on the other. While in a 2000 Vinothek the stone tends to shape the character and the fruit resonates, in the Federspiel it is consequently the other way round. There is plenty of ripe fruit, reminiscent of liquefied quince, kumquat and stone fruit. The acidity is profound and has carried the wine through the decade with a lightness of 2004 that one can only marvel at. At 11.5 %, the 2004 is actually a prancing lightweight. But just as highly trained, muscular dancers sometimes seem to defy gravity and hide all their power behind elegance, so too does the Steinriesler, marked by a freshness and late youth that deeply impresses.