2016 Riesling Pfaffenberg Alte Reben

This old-vines bottling proves to be in a different league not just from its “regular” Pfaffenberg counterpart but indeed from all of the already admirable offerings that preceded it in Pichler and Krutzler’s vintage 2016 lineup. An intense nose of ripe white peach, pear and quince garlanded in freesia and lily-of-the-valley also offers intimations of the stoniness and mouthwatering salinity that follow on a luscious, billowingly perfume-laden, silken-textured and glossy palate. A piquant glow suggests the interface of peach kernel and almond serving for counterpoint and extension on a buoyant finish of prodigious length and mouthwatering salinity, transparent to a shimmering sense of crystalline stony impingement. Subtle sweetness is entirely supportive of the wine’s luscious fruit and enhances a sense of inner-mouth floral perfume while being nicely checked by its subtly bitter elements and efficacious acidity. “You can sense how this high-elevation, almost perpetually breezy site never risks its wine becoming as lavish and voluminous [ üppig ] as can happen with Loibenberg,” noted Elisabeth Pichler, adding that “these vines are not at all far away from those that inform our other Pfaffenberg Riesling, but are twice as old.” And with that age surely comes unique genetic diversity.