2014 Nikolaihof Riesling Smaragd Vom Stein

2014 Nikolaihof Riesling Smaragd Vom Stein
Fresh lime mixed with cured, salted lemons, waxy and minerally. Somehow along all that, this tastes just like a glass of fresh-pressed cider made from yellow apples. Delicate and lithe at one moment and oily and unctuous at the next, a touch of petrol and feral VA, honeyed yet chiseled with great brightness, very long. Complex, dazzling, unusual, a little scattered, undeniably delicious. If this is what natty wine tastes like, give me more!

My first Nikolaihof and wow, what a wild ride, awesome stuff, not something I’d crave all the time but perfect for a full moon, totally cross cutting, foremost like a Spatlese mixed with a Sancerre, mixed with a little Jura, and perhaps some Chenin Blanc thrown in for good measure!

Great note, it sounds like a fun wine. They are a great producer, but we rarely see them around here.

I'm not sure Nikolaihof would be the posterchild for natural wine. Although cider and VA certainly qualify as stereotypical 'natty wine' notes!

I think this is the one 'natural' wine they make.

[David M. Bueker]

IIRC it’s not so much a “natural” wine, but rather one of low intervention raised in a very old cask that has its own character. Sometimes that works and sometimes it doesn’t. Apparently it worked this time.

I dearly love Nikolaihof wines, but have been burned more than once. So I now tread carefully.

Yes, when I think of "Natural" wines Nikolaihof is not first that comes to mind, though they are biodynamic/Demeter. But they're not no sulfur fuzzy wines.
I buy the Steiner Hund the most, it's pretty dependable. The long time in a fuder bottlings like Steinriesler and Vinotek can be great, but I don't find them consistently so.
Thanks Patrick for the note

Definitely in the dark with this producer, but I do drink a lot of Austrian white wine (just ones well known in the US) and this was unlike any I’ve had from the Wachau and elsewhere.

I was filling out a case for shipping and saw effusive Schildknecht’s note and rating on the ‘14 Vom Stein (worth a read, he captured a lot of it’s essence for me), so I took a flier on a few bottles. Glad I did, now I’m looking for some Steiner Hund to try.