2020 Weingut Stadt Krems Grillenparz Riesling Erste OTW Lage Reserve Kremstal Austria

The City of Krems founded this winery in 1452 to fund a local hospital. Nearly six centuries later, that same city still owns Weingut Stadt Krems — making it one of the oldest continuously operating wineries on Earth and easily the most unusual ownership story in fine wine.

The Grillenparz is the estate's crown jewel: a tiny 3.6-acre terraced hillside in the village of Stein, just east of the Wachau border. The vineyard is classified Erste Lage (first growth) by Austria's Traditionsweingüter — the equivalent of Burgundy's Premier Cru system and the highest classification available to Austrian wines outside Wachau. The name translates as "cricket plot," a nod to the gneiss, mica-schist, and calcareous conglomerate soils that radiate heat so steadily even the crickets prefer this hillside after sundown. It's also exactly the kind of stony, sun-soaked terroir that elite Riesling demands.

This is the Reserve bottling — the cuvée that gets extended time on fine lees through the following summer rather than the usual late-winter release, gaining extra depth, texture, and ageability. From the 2020 vintage, Falstaff scored it 95 points and Wine Enthusiast added 93, calling it "stunning" and noting it would only get better with cellaring through 2026 and beyond.

If you've been impressed by top German GGs or Alsace Grand Cru Riesling but haven't yet explored Austria's best, this is exactly where to start. Bone-dry, mineral-driven, age-worthy, and built for the table — pair with anything from grilled trout to roast pork to spicy Thai curry.