Josef Fischer Riesling Smaragd Ried Steiger

The Fischer family has produced wine on the Danube’s southern banks for centuries, from holdings in and around their home village of Rossatz, in the eastern stretches of the Wachau. The winery itself traces its roots to 1898, and today fifth-generation Josef Fischer (or “Joe,” to distinguish him from his father—also named Josef) works 11 hectares of Grüner Veltliner and Riesling from several of Rossatz’s top sites.

Fischer’s Smaragd-level Riesling from the Steiger vineyard offers an even greater sense of tension than its Federspiel counterpart—not always the case with the later-harvested Smaragd category—and introduces an additional layer of smoky earth, as well as a chalky texture, beneath its tight-grained fruit-acid structure. This typically carries three or four grams of residual sugar, but reads as bone-dry. It ferments spontaneously and ages the better part of a year on its fine lees in stainless steel with minimal sulfur additions.