| Vintage Name Variety | Publication Reviewer Score More... | |
|---|---|---|
| White |
2011 Alzinger Grüner Veltliner Federspiel MühlpointWachau more |
Terry Theise Estate Selections, Terry Theise2012 Austrian Catalog (6/1/2012) ALA-120. ($29.00) This is the hillside below the Steinertal, where the slope moderates and you don’t need terraces. The soil changes also, but whereas the wines used to be overtly green-beany, recent vintages have shown more minerality and a cooler profile, which Leo ascribes to the vines’ aging, and “to the roots reaching their water source as they go deeper into the soil.” For sure this 2011 was unusually sleek and herbal, less green bean and more marjoram. It’s also quite sedate, pure and moderate. It’s a chill dude, basically. The finish mixes cress and almond and a surprisingly dense minerality. |
| White |
2011 Alzinger Grüner Veltliner Smaragd LoibenbergWachau more |
Terry Theise Estate Selections, Terry Theise2012 Austrian Catalog (6/1/2012) ALA-122. ($56.00) (cask) Lovely fragrance and a superbly firm and mineral palate.Though alcohol is a factor.As exotic as Heiligenstein would be if it were grown there, yet with the feline calm of these wines.Complex, smoky finish. Bottling should contain some of its extravagance and accentuate the mineral. + (+) |
| White |
2011 Alzinger Grüner Veltliner Smaragd MühlpointWachau more |
Terry Theise Estate Selections, Terry Theise2012 Austrian Catalog (6/1/2012) ALA-121. ($44.00) This one does show the green bean but mixed with a surprisingly adamant nettle, boxwood and cress; no wine I know has improved as much as this one over the last fifteen years. Today it’s intricately textured, like a salad of 25 edible plants and herbs; lovage, savory, dandelion greens. + |
| White |
2011 Alzinger Grüner Veltliner Smaragd SteinertalWachau more |
Terry Theise Estate Selections, Terry Theise2012 Austrian Catalog (6/1/2012) ALA-113. ($64.00) Almost garrigue-y, it’s so sunny and generous. The palate is splendidly complex and serpentine; really green tea (actually like a Chinese green called Tai Ping); addictively juicy and spearminty; extravagantly delicious yet not at all seductive. + + |
| White |
2011 Alzinger Riesling Federspiel DürnsteinerWachau more |
Terry Theise Estate Selections, Terry Theise2012 Austrian Catalog (6/1/2012) ALA-114. ($34.00) This begins a gorgeous and superb group of Rieslings, as aglow as a person in love. It’s tender and dear and affectionate; salty and with a chervil-y greenness, into a markedly long mineral finish. There’s an underlying tension in its second half, as if the calm were deceptive. + |
| White |
2011 Alzinger Riesling HohereckWachau more |
Terry Theise Estate Selections, Terry Theise2012 Austrian Catalog (6/1/2012) ALA-117. ($59.00) Last year we got a few bottles, and this year we’ll get a few plus a few. The total production is around 70 cases — the total production. “Um, Leo,” I said, “Wouldn’t it make sense, since the production is so tiny, to sell it all to one customer? Someone, for example, such as, perhaps, me?” Ha haha; yes, that would be funny. Now don’t be mad if you can’t get any. Even if I were to beg pathetically I couldn’t eke more than 10 cases from them. I wish it were otherwise, because in some vintages I think this is the best Riesling of all. There’s authority here, solid power, and an astonishing conciliation of Hollerin’s fruit with Loibenberg’s exotics with Steinertal’sminerality. This 2011 is incomprehensible; all herbs and spices, some white flower notes, but really it’s an exegesis of terroir; incense, roasted peppers, Uva-smoke; it just could be too complex for the human mind. (Or at any rate, mine.)Endless spices and mineral finish. + + |
| White |
2011 Alzinger Riesling Smaragd Dürnsteiner HollerinWachau more |
Terry Theise Estate Selections, Terry Theise2012 Austrian Catalog (6/1/2012) ALA-116. ($55.00) As always, the apricots. Just a magnificent dry Riesling, 50-year vines now, and the swell of mineral is just scintillating below the rampant pitted-fruit. It’s one of those pagan dances of yellow (nectarines) and green (herbs) and grey (stones, baby!) that just has you shaking your head. No need to “interpret” here! + + |
| White |
2011 Alzinger Riesling Smaragd Dürnsteiner LiebenbergWachau more |
Terry Theise Estate Selections, Terry Theise2012 Austrian Catalog (6/1/2012) ALA-115. ($55.00) This is another wine which has undergone dramatic improvement the past couple years. The ‘11 has its customary radish-y profile, with jasmine and mint, and the palate is sensational, physio-sweet, fruity but coolly so, like quince and ginger; really juicy and hard as hell to spit; gorgeously spicy finish. Leo again thinks the vines — at 12 years old — have found their aquifer and can settle into transmitting traces from the sub-soils. + + |
| White |
2011 Alzinger Riesling Smaragd LoibenbergWachau more |
Terry Theise Estate Selections, Terry Theise2012 Austrian Catalog (6/1/2012) ALA-118. ($59.00) Refined spice; complex, graceful, regal and supple; the palate is otherworldly, I can’t bear to spit it; it has a beatific gleam, an inviting glow of beauty. All you can do is be grateful. Not impressed or blown away or even amazed. Just, please — grateful. + + + |
| White |
2011 Alzinger Riesling Smaragd SteinertalWachau more |
Terry Theise Estate Selections, Terry Theise2012 Austrian Catalog (6/1/2012) ALA-119. ($67.00) This was my subjective favorite, but the Loibenberg was more divine-seeming. Leo told me the Steinertal had been showing better until the previous week, when the Loibenberg came on. That’s how they are, we agreed. This has all its gorgeous stinging green vigor in a whip—crack sharp relief, as racy and rippling as a high-strung colt. + + |
| Red |
2009 Weingut Berger Blauer Zweigelt HaidKremstal more |
Terry Theise Estate Selections, Terry Theise2012 Austrian Catalog (6/1/2012) ABG-118. ($22.00) Boy that ’08 as such a dead-ringer for an 80s Zin, back when you could drink them, back when they gave some odd archaic thing called “pleasure.” He still has 40 cases of it, if you want it. This ’09 is rounder and shows more mid-palate tobacco and stock, rounder contours and fewer angles, less briar than the ’08; easier to “get” if you respond to warmth per se. But they’re both happy-tongue puppies, with the ’08 more mischievous and the ’09 more sedate. |
| Red |
2006 Weingut Berger Blauer Zweigelt LeithenKremstal more |
Terry Theise Estate Selections, Terry Theise2012 Austrian Catalog (6/1/2012) ABG-095. ($28.00) 2nd and 3rd-use barriques here, but the wine isn’t markedly oaky; indeed an almost Burgundian aroma, complex and almost overwhelmingly fruity; the palate is a whipcrack of spice but also deep juicy texture that begs to be swallowed; this is a sexy wine in the modern idiom but it isn’t overwrought or pornographic; it’s true body, true fruit, real flavor you can use. + |
| White |
2011 Weingut Berger Gelber MuskatellerKremstal more |
Terry Theise Estate Selections, Terry Theise2012 Austrian Catalog (6/1/2012) ABG-124. ($21.00) Markedly salty and on the catty side, but full of ripe green, aloe, balsam, wintergreen and verbena; an almost elegant critter even with its kitten-claws. |
| White |
2011 Weingut Berger Grüner VeltlinerKremstal more |
Terry Theise Estate Selections, Terry Theise2012 Austrian Catalog (6/1/2012) ABG-119L. ($15.00) Really almost gorgeous aromas; again, ‘11 is the best-ever vintage for these liters; salty lovely dimpled chubby fruit, and a deliberate charming finish. |
| White |
2011 Weingut Berger Grüner Veltliner LössterrassenKremstal more |
Terry Theise Estate Selections, Terry Theise2012 Austrian Catalog (6/1/2012) ABG-125. ($21.00) It’s seriously peppery for a loess wine; lots of opal basil and even a nettle-y snap; classy, with an angular charm. The finish is a little fleeting, but this isn’t a wine one studies. Drink away! |
| White |
2011 Weingut Berger Grüner Veltliner Reserve GeblingKremstal more |
Terry Theise Estate Selections, Terry Theise2012 Austrian Catalog (6/1/2012) ABG-121. ($27.00) This is best in vintages where it has to push its way to ripeness, whereas an already-ripe year can shove it into overstatement. This one’s big, spicy and granite-like, stern and salty. It carries its 14% alc. moderately well, until the jalapeño finish. |
| White |
2011 Weingut Berger Riesling Reserve Steingraben Kremstalmore |
Terry Theise Estate Selections, Terry Theise2012 Austrian Catalog (6/1/2012) ABG-123. ($27.00) A bacchanale of apricots in a full-throttle juice-bomb fleshpot of a Riesling; not at all subtle! But despite its high alcohol it’s so voluptuous it seems to work; a huge, cunningly balanced wine that finally overcomes you with its sheer extravagant gaiety. + |
| White |
2011 Weingut Berger Riesling Spiegel Kremstalmore |
Terry Theise Estate Selections, Terry Theise2012 Austrian Catalog (6/1/2012) ABG-122. ($21.00) In the topsy-turvy world of 2011, the usually “small” Riesling, the one that’s polite but relatively mute, comes blasting out with 13.5% alc. and a ripe stern fragrance. But the palate’s a big surprise; super expressive, thickly vinous, like an unopened peony; it runs to herbs, green tea, jasmine; a big happy thump of flavor. |
| Red |
2011 Weingut Berger ZweigeltKremstal more |
Terry Theise Estate Selections, Terry Theise2012 Austrian Catalog (6/1/2012) ABG-112L. (#N/A) A plummy cool Dolcetto, basically.Which of course you can’t actually get from Dolcetto anymore. A shade-cool, berried interlude between the meaty-roasty ‘09 and ‘11. It has all the single-vineyard wines (Haid and Leithen) this year, so it’s an overachiever and a bargain. |
| Rosé - Sparkling |
NV Weingut Willi Bründlmayer Brut RoséKamptal Rosé Blend more |
Terry Theise Estate Selections, Terry Theise2012 Austrian Catalog (6/1/2012) ABY-273. ($44.00) Based on ’08, as always PN-Zweigelt and St-L — boy is this pretty!Silky, careful, exquisite fruit.A stylish and delicious rosé. |
| Red |
2004 Weingut Willi Bründlmayer Cabernet Franc Cuvée VincentKamptal more |
Terry Theise Estate Selections, Terry Theise2012 Austrian Catalog (6/1/2012) ABY-269. ($53.00) I was seriously impressed with this, perhaps more than any previously tasted Willi-red. Unexpectedly ripe and gracious with a fetching aroma and a sweet-natured palate. And can you get Chinon with 12.5% alc. that doesn’t have a bellpeppery stink? This is like a fine Chinon of the 70s or 80s. |
| White |
2007 Weingut Willi Bründlmayer Grüner Veltliner Alte Reben Kamptalmore |
Terry Theise Estate Selections, Terry Theise2012 Austrian Catalog (6/1/2012) ABY-259. ($48.00) The 2007 gets better and better, now sweet-natured and warm. There’s also an ‘08 in the wings, but bless him: we have the luxury of waiting for it. ++ |
| White |
2011 Weingut Willi Bründlmayer Grüner Veltliner Alte Reben Kamptal Reservemore |
Terry Theise Estate Selections, Terry Theise2012 Austrian Catalog (6/1/2012) ABY-260. ($55.00) When this is good it’s really good, and the 2011 has wonderful grip and elegance for “big” wines from this warm year; classic rusk and dried porcini aromas; salty and tatsoi and really good Pho; stern yet juicy, serious yet sensual. + |
| White |
2011 Weingut Willi Bründlmayer Grüner Veltliner Berg-VogelsangKamptal more |
Terry Theise Estate Selections, Terry Theise2012 Austrian Catalog (6/1/2012) ABY-254H. ($17.00) As smoky as if it had botrytis, which of course it doesn’t.Boxwood and ore and shoot-smoke; juicy and pointedly spicy; Vogelsang at its most adamant and masculine, with an herbal mid-palate. |
| White |
2008 Weingut Willi Bründlmayer Grüner Veltliner LammKamptal more |
Terry Theise Estate Selections, Terry Theise2012 Austrian Catalog (6/1/2012) ABY-213. ($77.00) The 2008, which I’ve offered the past two years, is a masterpiece, just barely starting to show tertiary and woodsy tones. Built for the long haul. I always like this wine from the vintages where it struggles to be ripe. +++ |
Terry Theise Estate Selections (click to search again)
- Reviews: 218 /
- Wines: 181
