Neumeister - Weissburgunder "Ried Klausen" 1STK 2021 (750ml)
Price: $49.99
| Producer | Neumeister |
| Country | Austria |
| Region | Styria |
| Varietal | Weissburgunder (Pinot Blanc) |
| Vintage | 2021 |
| Sku | 206400 |
| Size | 750ml |
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Neumeister Description
In the southeast corner of Vulkanland Steiermark, close to where Slovenia's northwest corner meets Hungary's southwest corner, third-generation winegrower Christoph Neumeister farms 30 hectares of vines spread over numerous steep hillsides around his hometown of Straden, planted at altitudes of 340 to 380 meters above sea level. Soils here are diverse, with volcanic basalt, sandy loam, chalky limestone, and sandstone all influencing the characteristics of the grapes grown on these slopes, most of which exceed 65% in gradient. Vulkanland Steiermark's climate is mercurial and difficult: cool winds from the Alps clash with warm breezes from the Adriatic Sea to the south and Hungary's Pannonian plains to the east, bringing lots of rainfall and frequent hailstorms; and the zone's extremely cold nights-diurnal shifts regularly exceed 20 degrees Celsius during summer-make for a lengthy growing season.
Thoughtful, meticulous, and articulate, Christoph Neumeister took over from his father Albert in 2006, when he was just 25 years old, obtaining certification in 2013 for the organic viticultural practices Albert had begun employing in the 1990s. Vulkanland Steiermark's extreme inclines make machine work next to impossible, so not only is harvest conducted manually, but all tasks in the vineyards are completed by hand. The Neumeister cellar was designed top-to-bottom to treat fruit, must, and wine as gently and naturally as possible: all wines ferment spontaneously, and everything is moved solely by gravity from harvest through bottling. Christoph favors well-used oak in the aging of his wines, which allows the mineral potency and textural splendor inherent in his low-yield-derived fruit to blossom over the wines' lengthy stints in cask; such transformations are impossible with a curt passage in highly thermoregulated stainless steel.
Christoph owns well-situated parcels of multiple grape varieties, including Weissburgunder (Pinot Blanc), Grauburgunder (Pinot Gris), and Morillon (Chardonnay), but it is Sauvignon Blanc-brought to Styria in the early 1800s by Archduke Johann of the House of Habsburg-Lorraine-that produces arguably the region's most distinctive and complex wines. Christoph's Sauvignon Blanc is a far cry from most of those produced in the eastern Loire Valley in which the variety was born. While pockets of great terroir exist in appellations like Sancerre and Pouilly-Fume, of course, many of its wines are cropped for high production, harvested by machine, inoculated with intrusive artificial yeasts, and crammed into bottle after only a few months in stainless steel-relying on name recognition to do the heavy lifting in the market. Christoph's yields, on the other hand, rarely top 35 hectoliters per hectare; hand-harvesting ensures that only perfect and intact fruit enters the winery; and patient aging allows his Sauvignon Blanc to assume a breadth and texture experienced in very few examples from elsewhere.
Neumeister’s Weissburgunder (Pinot Blanc) forcefully demonstrates the minerality these steep Styrian hillsides can foster, with taut yellow fruit taking a backseat to a glinting, chiseled sense of stoniness; its penetrating depth of flavor belies its modest 12% alcohol. Fermentation proceeds spontaneously in stainless steel, and the wine spends the better part of a year on its fine lees in steel as well—a regimen that spotlights the wine’s crystalline character and keeps its fruit lively and fresh.
Vinous: 94 Points
The 2021 Ried Klausen Weissburgunder is deep and intense on the elegant nose. Vinified in a 1,000-liter and three 500-liter barrels for one year and on the fine lees in stainless steel before the bottling in late April this year, this is an elegant, lush and well balanced, densely woven and textured, slightly creamy and oaky but remarkably refined and sustainable Pinot Blanc with fine tannins and delicate salinity on the long and intense, still youthful and crunchy finish. This is a promising Pinot Blanc from poor sandstone and shell limestone soils. 13% stated alcohol. Natural cork.
