Franz Hirtzberger, Riesling Hochrain Smaragd, 2024 LOIRECOUNT1123 There’s grip from the tannins

There’s grip from the tannins

and white apricot singing across the palate

Long Island in 1982—choosing the Hamptons' South Fork over the flatter North Fork fields

long celebrated for breaking the rules of French wine hierarchy

it's a fragile

Franz Hirtzberger, Riesling Hochrain Smaragd, 2024 LOIRECOUNT1123 There’s grip from the tanninsAnother of Hirtzberger's celebrated Spitz crus, this one with a slightly different signature Hochrain sits on weathered crystalline rock with a thin overlay of sandy loam, which gives the Smaragd a touch more flesh than its purely gneiss bound siblings. Still unmistakably Wachau: cool, mineral, vertical, built for the long haul. 2024 brought clarity and tension to the vineyard, and the result is a Riesling that opens with white peach and apricot