Wachau – Martin Muthenthaler – Grüner Veltliner, Ried Schön 2019

(95-96p) Wine Advocate (2018): Tasted from the assemblage vat a week before the bottling, the barrel-fermented 2018 Grüner Veltliner Ried Schön is deep, clear and generous on the highly elegant and herbal/stony as well as slightly oaky and more and more flinty nose. Again, I can find hints of rendered speck or bacon. Dense and generous on the palate, this is a highly elegant, silky-textured and beautifully balanced Veltliner with great finesse and tension due to a vibrant mineral heartbeat and lovely lime and lemon flavors on the finish. The 2018 Schön is dancing a waltz on the palate, but it also reveals endless salinity, transparency and mineral freshness and is really sublime on the finish. This is a great Wachau wine that could even improve the Vinea Smaragd league.