One of my favorite growers (and people) whom I have watched, happily, as he emerged from his tentative beginnings and arrived at a place among the stellar. I approach these wines with a sense of occasion. Georg Prieler is an icon producer of Blaufränkisch, and an excellent producer of Pinot Blanc, and he makes the most interesting Rosé I know.
As a merchant I worked with the Prielers almost from the start. I was pulled in by an excellent and original Weissburgunder, during a time I’d started to see that Austria had really drawn a bead on this variety. I discovered that Engelbert Prieler – “Bertl” to his friends – was also a believer in Blaufränkisch, and his single-site Goldberg bottling was one of the most noteworthy wines of a then-nascent movement to create masterpieces from the variety.
In those days the wine was marked by broody tannin and an opacity that didn’t yield for many years. (It was rather at odds with the vibe of the family, which was quippy and almost relentlessly cheerful.) But when you finally could taste through that stubborn veil, a remarkable thing could be glimpsed.
Prieler had two children, and in 1999 his daughter Silvia was lured back to the estate from a career in the sciences. She was assisted by her quite young kid-brother Georg. Things seemed stable. When I made my visits, I’d sit with the family, directing any questions I might have to Dad (as I’d been taught to pay that honor to the elder, even if the kids were “in charge.”) Bertl wouldn’t hear of it, deflecting each of my questions back to his kids, insisting “I’m just a simple farmer now, at home in my vineyards.”
When I would compliment a wine, he would interject “That was the result of some outstanding work in the vineyards,” and when I caught on I would preface all further praise by turning to him and saying “My goodness, the vineyard work for this wine must have been miraculous!” To which he would blush becomingly and murmur “Well, yes….”
In 2013 Silvia met me at a Champagne bar in Vienna (“Le Cru”) to tell me she was leaving the estate to return to her earlier career in scientific research. Georg was ready, she said, “And even if he isn’t I’m close by and just a phone call away.” The siblings worked in tandem until Georg took sole control in 2011.
With my once-a-year visits I often saw developments in what felt like time-lapse photography. By Georg’s third year I discerned a shift, in the wines and in him. He had assumed command. The wines were changing, and for the better.
It is in effect the story of modern Austrian wines – reds especially – in microcosm. The overt flavors of wood were in retreat, and tannin was yielding to fruit, and both cask and tannin were learning to serve rather than dominate the wines.
Georg has added land, discontinued a few wines that didn’t engage him, and is now regarded as one of the icon-producers of Blaufränkisch. He has both maintained and broadened the estate Pinot Blancs, turned the Rosé into a singular and fascinating example of an often-mundane genre, and assumed his proper place among Austria’s elite. He himself would demur from such lofty praise, but despite his chipper demeanor he is dead-serious about the wines, and pleased when they’re tasted attentively. When I asked him if my interpretations of his wines’ developments over the years were credible, he replied “As always you feel every step I take. There is no secret for me (wink emoji).”
Indeed the reds have improved so powerfully that they threaten to overshadow the still-excellent whites. (It reminds me of Ziereisen’s wines, actually.) The path you beat to the door is for those dramatic reds, and once you’re inside you discover some “pretty damn good” whites as well. But a new offering from a recently obtained site suggests the whites, too, could assume elite status before much longer.
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