Wine from Arietta Winery

Filter

Arietta Winery:

Arietta, an ultra-premium Napa winery specializing in limited production Bordeaux-style blends, is owned by wine specialist and auctioneer Fritz Hatton and his wife Caren. One of America’s most celebrated winemakers, Andy Erickson, crafts the Arietta wines from carefully chosen blocks in the cooler climates of Napa Valley. The Arietta wine portfolio currently consists of four red wines—H Block Hudson, Variation One, Cabernet Sauvignon, and Quartet—and one white wine, On The White Keys.

The Hattons founded Arietta in 1996 in partnership with winemaker John Kongsgaard and his wife Maggy. The partnership was born of a shared passion for fine wine and classical music. The vinous inspiration for Arietta was an extraordinary 2.3 acre block of Cabernet Franc on the Hudson Ranch in Napa/Carneros. The fruit from this block of Cabernet Franc serves as the core of the Arietta Red Wine H Block Hudson Vineyards. The Arietta project grew with the selection of additional superb blocks of Merlot and Syrah on the Hudson Ranch, which made possible the addition of two wines to the Arietta portfolio: Arietta Red Wine Variation One, an innovative blend of Merlot and Syrah, and Arietta Merlot Hudson Vineyards, produced only in selected vintages.

Pursuing our principle of purchasing fruit only from the very finest vineyard blocks, Arietta in the 2003 vintage purchased a small quantity of Cabernet Sauvignon from Howell Mountain vineyards farmed by famed Napa grower David Abreu. This fruit afforded us the opportunity to release a small quantity of Arietta Cabernet Sauvignon in the 2003 through 2005 vintages, as well as the Arietta Claret 2004 and 2005. In 2006 Arietta leased a fabulously situated 1.6 acre block of clone 337 Cabernet Sauvignon in Coombsville, which became the new core of the Arietta Cabernet. The same year saw the introduction of Arietta Quartet, a blend four Bordeaux varietals. Since 2009 the core of the quartet has been a jewel of a three acre vineyard in Coombsville, painstakingly laid out and planted by famed viticulturist David Abreu in 2003.

Erickson crafted Arietta’s first ever white wine, Arietta “On The White Keys” 2005, from very rare hillside blocks of Sauvignon Blanc on Sonoma Mountain and two tiny old vine Semillon blocks in the Hyde Vineyards in Napa Carneros. Barrel fermented and aged for eight months in a combination of stainless steel, new oak, and French oak barrels, the Arietta White Keys, with its distinctive combination of vibrant flavors and a grand finish, was an instant success upon release in the fall of 2006.

Arietta's label features the manuscript of Beethoven's Arietta movement from his last Piano Sonata, Opus 111, written long after the composer had lost his hearing. Opus 111 is one of the most transporting and revolutionary pieces of music ever composed. Serene yet complex, rich yet ethereal, Beethoven’s Arietta provides an inspirational model for great winemaking.

No products found

back

Selected Options

Organic/Free Shipping

Free Shipping
Organic

Featured Product

Weingut Prager Achleiten Riesling Smaragd 2020

$90.00 $80.00

Buy Now

Weingut Prager Achleiten Riesling Smaragd is made from 100 percent Riesling.

Franz Prager, co-founder of the Vinea Wachau, had already earned a reputation for his wines when Toni Bodenstein married into the family. Bodenstein’s passion for biodiversity and old terraces, coupled with brilliant winemaking, places Prager in the highest echelon of Austrian producers.

Smaragd is a designation of ripeness for dry wines used exclusively by members of the Vinea Wachau. The wines must have a minimum alcohol of 12.5%. The grapes are hand-harvested, typically in October and November, and are sent directly to press where they spontaneously ferment in stainless-steel tanks.

Achleiten sits east of Weißenkirchen and is one of the most famous vineyards in the Wachau. The steeply-terraced vineyard existed in Roman times. Some sections have just 40 cm of topsoil over the bedrock of Gföler Gneiss, amphibolitic stone, and slate. “Destroyed soil,” as Toni Bodenstein likes to say.

Tasting Notes:

Austrian Riesling is often defined by elevated levels of dry extract thanks to a lengthy ripening period and freshness due to dramatic temperature swings between day and night. Wines from Achleiten’s highly complex soils are famously marked by a mineral note of flint or gun smoke, are intensely flavored, and reliably long-lived.

Food Pairing:

Riesling’s high acidity makes it one of the most versatile wines at the table. Riesling can be used to cut the fattiness of foods such as pork or sausages and can tame some saltiness. Conversely, it can highlight foods such as fish or vegetables in the same way a squeeze of lemon or a vinaigrette might.

Review:

The 2020 Ried Achleiten Riesling Smaragd offers a well-concentrated, fleshy and spicy stone fruit aroma with crunchy and flinty notes. It needs some time to get rid of the stewed fruit flavors, though. Full-bodied, fresh and crystalline, this is an elegant, complex and finely tannic Riesling that needs some years rather than a carafe to polymerize the tannins and gain some finesse. Tasted at the domain in June 2021.

At Prager, I could not determine that 2020 would be inferior to the 2019 vintage; on the contrary, the 2020 Smaragd wines fascinated me enormously in their clear, cool, terroir-tinged way. A 38% loss had occurred mainly because of the hail on August 22, although predominantly in the Federspiel or Riesling vineyards. There was no damage in the top vineyards such as Ried Klaus, Achleiten or Zwerithaler. "Interestingly, the vines are in agony for about two weeks after the hail. There was no more growth, no development of ripeness and sugar," reports Toni Bondenstein. The Veltliner then recovered earlier, while even picking a Riesling Federspiel in October was still a struggle. "Why Riesling reacted more intensively to the hail, I don't know myself either," says Bodenstein. Whole clusters were pressed to preserve acidity and to compensate for the lower extract, and compared to 2019, the 2020s were left on their lees longer. In June, however, the 20s in particular showed outstanding early shape.

-Wine Advocate 94 Points

Light yellow-green, silver reflections. Yellow stone fruit nuances with a mineral underlay, notes of peach and mango, a hint of tangerine zest, mineral touch. Juicy, elegant, white fruit, acidity structure rich in finesse, lemony-salty finish, sure aging potential.

-Falstaff 95 Points