Nikolaihof: Ready to Drink on Principle

Dear,

in 2024, Nikolaihof put a Weißburgunder from 1987 on sale, thirty-seven years after the harvest. Other old vintages came out of the archive that same year, from 2009 to 2016. Two of them are Hefeabzug, the lightest wine the house makes. At this estate a wine goes on sale only once it is ready to drink.

Niki Saahs tastes constantly and releases a wine when he thinks it is finished, that is – ready. Nikolaihof is considered the oldest wine estate in Austria, and the cellar lies in a Roman undercroft. Since 1971 they have farmed biodynamically here. Christine Saahs had married into the family by then, and there was no seal for it, not for many years. The wines are lightly built, Federspiel here means around twelve and a half per cent alcohol, and they keep all the same, or precisely because of it. Federspiel, after all, light as a feather.

Riesling 2011 · Veltliner 2016 · Veltliner 2013 · Neuburger 2014 · Muskateller 2013 · Traminer 2009

One click adds all six to your basket.
You can remove or swap individual bottles there.

We have put six of them together as the Maturity Case, the youngest from 2016, the oldest from 2009. A Riesling, two Veltliners, and three varieties that are rarely given this much time: Neuburger, Gelber Muskateller, Gewürztraminer.

Aus den Gärten, Riesling 2011

Aus den Gärten is the estate wine of Nikolaihof. The grapes come from several Rieden around Mautern, the wine spends half a year in a large wooden cask and is then bottled as Federspiel. The estate says one of its Federspiel wines keeps for twenty years. This one is fifteen years old and sat in the archive until 2024.

Hefeabzug, two vintages

Hefeabzug means the wine goes straight from the fine lees into the bottle after half a year. It is the lightest Veltliner of the house, meant as an aperitif. The grapes grow on the Steiner Goldberg, a Ried that has been in the books since 1302. The young Hefeabzug costs approx. €21 with us, the 2016 approx. €38, the 2013 approx. €43. We put both old ones in the case, because side by side in the glass you see what three more years in the bottle do.

Neuburger 2014

Neuburger exists almost only in Austria, on around five hundred hectares. The variety came about on its own, from Roter Veltliner and Silvaner. As the legend goes, around 1850 a bundle of vines was fished out of the Danube near Arnsdorf and planted. Later the variety stood on the Burgberg in Spitz, hence the name. Neuburger has little acidity, so you drink it young. Nikolaihof left its 2014 lying for ten years.

Gelber Muskateller 2013

In 2007 the Saahs family planted saffron on one parcel of the estate, thirty thousand corms, together with the ecologist Bernhard Kaar. Two years later the harvest was Demeter-certified. The Muskateller grows in the Ried Bischofpoint, on a cool slope that looks north-east. Normally you drink Muskateller while it still smells of blossom. The house left this one lying for eleven years, at ten and a half per cent alcohol.

Gewürztraminer 2009

Gewürztraminer is a rarity in the Wachau. At Nikolaihof it grows on the small patch of land that is not Riesling or Veltliner. The house makes it dry, at twelve per cent alcohol, and you rarely see either with this variety. The 2009 is the oldest wine in the case. It was Niki Saahs’ fifth vintage, and in 2024 he released it.

Where do you start?

Start with the young Hefeabzug and finish with the Traminer. Put the bottles in the fridge an hour before dinner, no longer. Ice-cold, an old white wine smells of nothing. Half an hour in the glass does the Traminer good.

1× Aus den Gärten Riesling 2011 → fifteen years old
1× Hefeabzug 2016 → the aperitif
1× Hefeabzug 2013 → the same wine, three years older
1× Neuburger 2014 → the rare one
1× Gelber Muskateller 2013 → saffron instead of blossom
1× Gewürztraminer 2009 → the oldest, dry

One click adds all six to your basket. You can remove or swap individual bottles there.

We have fifty-six wines from Nikolaihof in the shop. The cheapest is the young Hefeabzug 2024 for approx. €21. Two special bottles: the Steiner Hund Riesling Reserve 2008 for approx. €102, and the Baumgarten Weißburgunder Federspiel 1987, of which we have thirty-seven bottles, for approx. €135.

Warm regards from Berlin,

Lisa and the team at
Living Wines

P.S.: The Vinothek Riesling “Fass Severin” 1997 lay in cask for nearly a quarter of a century, until Niki Saahs bottled it in 2022. It smells of green apricot and lime blossom, tastes austere and saline, and the finish does not stop.