Knoll Loibner Riesling Smaragd 2021

Where Knoll's single-Ried bottlings argue for one terrace at a time, the Loibner Riesling Smaragd speaks for the village: Riesling drawn from several sites around Loiben, on south-facing slopes of sandy alluvial loess at 220 to 240 meters above the Danube. This is the warmer, eastern end of the Wachau, where the Knoll family has farmed for three generations under the baroque Saint Urban label that has marked their bottles since 1962. Smaragd, the ripest of the Vinea Wachau's dry categories, signals a later harvest and full concentration with no residual sweetness, and this bottling is a pure, powerful expression of it. Alongside the estate's Kreutles Grüner Veltliner, it makes the case for Loiben in two grapes. An ideal first handshake with an iconic cellar.