91 Wine Enthusiast

"With its refreshing green and white fruits at the start and crisp acidity at the end, this wine seems deceptively simple. In between, however, the wine has complex layers of spice, lime juice and minerality that promise some good aging over three years. Screwcap. -R.V."

90 David Schildknecht - Robert Parker's Wine Advocate

"As with his intro-level cuvee of this vintage, Hirsch's 2012 Gruner Veltliner Heiligenstein effectively integrates considerable herbal pungency and piquancy as well as bitter hints of peach kernel. Beet root and tobacco earthiness along with incisive cut of pepper cress make for complexity, contrast and counterpoint on a richly expansive yet refreshing palate and in a sappily clinging, clear and protracted finish. This will perform with outstanding versatility at table - and quite possibly gain in stature - through at least 2018."

"Johannes Hirsch suffered especially severe 2012 losses to frost of Gruner Veltliner from his estate as well as that of the supplemental source for his intro-level bottling. He has rented further acreage of young vines in Kammern as well as in adjacent Strass to supplement that wine going forward and avoid future shortages. Hirsch was among those Kamptal growers to emphasize that, paradoxically, this particular May frost in some places affected higher-elevation parcels equally or even more than low-lying ones. But thankfully, his top Riesling sites were largely spared. Picking for Gruner Veltliner began here already at the beginning of October, two weeks ahead of the estate norm, although, notes Hirsch, "it's beginning to look as though early October might become the new normal." Hirsch favored slow pressing over pre-fermentative cold soak as a means of gently encouraging phenolic extraction."