Gruner Veltliner Liebenberg Smaragd, Weingut F.X. Pichler 2016

At once creamy and fresh with more herbal notes than fruity ones. Plenty of power at the front, and the finish is very long with a pronounced chalkiness. You could drink this now, but it has several decades ahead of it.

From a warm, very steep, southwest-facing vineyard with partly 60+-year-old vines on a calcareous soil with schist elements, the 2016 Ried Liebenberg Grüner Veltliner Smaragd opens with a clear, fresh, cool and dusty-chalky bouquet of wet limestone and perfectly ripe, well concentrated fruits. On the palate, this is a full-bodied, rich, elegant, silky textured and well balanced Grüner Veltliner with fine tannins structuring the intense, juicy/fleshy and well concentrated fruit. The acidity is very fine here and the finish salty, velvety and round without being sweet. It is a great and structured Liebenberg and possibly one of the best Grüner Veltliners I have tasted in the Wachau from 2016. Tasted as a sample in July 2017, three weeks before bottling.