Zierfandler, “Ried Traiskirchner Mandel-Höh”

Perhaps the Stadlmann estate’s crowning achievement, this exceptionally complex and age-worthy Zierfandler hails from 50-year-old vines planted in the Mandel-Höh vineyard (“Mandel” means “almond tree”—and where almonds thrive, so do wine grapes) outside Traiskirchen. This legendary site’s poor and fossil-strewn soil—the limestone bedrock is just 15 centimeters below the surface on this upper part of the slope—produces a wine of profound, smoke-tinged, palate-staining mineral potency whose layers of complexity require years of patience to unfurl. Following the family’s well-established traditional cellar methodology, this spends a year on its fine lees in large, decades-old Viennese-oak casks after fermenting spontaneously in the same vessel type.