Schloss Gobelsburg, Ried Heiligenstein Riesling Erste Lage, Kamptal DAC 2015 - 75cl
Eleven years on from harvest, the 2015 Heiligenstein has stopped being a promise and become a pleasure. This was one of the warmer, riper vintages of the decade in the Kamptal, and Michael Moosbrugger read it beautifully — picking a wine of real weight without ever letting the fruit turn blowsy. It is drinking now with the kind of unhurried confidence you only get from bottle age.
Heiligenstein is not your usual cool-slope Riesling site. The name loosely translates as "holy stone", and the hill sits on the Zöbinger Perm — an ancient bed of desert sandstone, silt and volcanic detritus laid down some 270 million years ago, unlike anything else in Austria. Schloss Gobelsburg, with monastic winemaking roots going back to the twelfth century, ferments this in large Austrian oak casks rather than steel, and you can feel that breadth in the glass.
The nose has moved into its second act — dried apricot, quince paste, a waxy lanolin note and beneath it that unmistakable crushed-stone signature. On the palate it is dry, broad and mouth-filling, the acidity now softened into the fruit rather than sitting above it. What holds everything together is the salinity, a savoury tug that runs right through a long, warm, honeyed finish. A grown-up Riesling for a grown-up occasion — pull the cork when you want a white with gravitas.
How to Serve
Serve at 11–12°C, a touch warmer than you'd give a young Riesling so the developed aromatics open up. A generous white Burgundy glass suits it. No need to decant, though thirty minutes in the glass rewards patience.
Where to Drink It
Wiltons on Jermyn Street, where the old-school room matches the wine's maturity. Bentley's, for a bottle alongside the day's best fish. Noble Rot in Lamb's Conduit Street, if you want somewhere that will properly geek out over an aged Austrian.
Food Pairings
I'd pour this with a whole roast chicken rubbed in tarragon butter — the developed richness of the wine loves a little animal fat. Smoked eel with horseradish would also be a quietly brilliant match.
