PRAGER: The Bodensteins & I

By Stuart Pigott - last revision: 03.06.26

PART ONE: History, Philosophy in the Wachau

When I mention the Prager wine estate in Weissenkirchen/Wachau to people who are interested in wine I often get the response, "yeah…but isn’t Wachau Producer X / Y / Z more interesting?“ The implication of these words is that somehow Prager isn’t either exciting or cool enough. How did this situation develop? First, let’s look at how the story and the history of the Wachau is told today. In every form of history there’s a danger of exprapolating backwards in time from the present. The temptation is to create a kind of synthetic history that isn’t based on an honest attempt to find out what really happened. This is appealing, because painful truths can be circumvented and reality twisted to provide confirmation and validation for those that tell or write the (hi)story; to them it "feels good".

The currently dominant Wachau story says that in spite of F.X. Pichler leaving the Vinea Wachau regional winegrowers association they, along with Emmerich Knoll in Unterloiben and Franz Hirtzbergerin Spitz form the "Wachauer Trio" of superstar winemakers. When this story is told it sounds as if it was always this way; a sure sign of passively synthesized history. HOWEVER, I remember how during the 1990s and the early years of this century people in the wine and gastronomic scene used to talk about the "Wachauer Quartet“ which always included Prager. Turning the clock back to the late 1980s and my first visits to the wine regions in the valley of the Danube and its tributaries, the reputations of F.X.Pichler and Franz Hirtzberger were at the beginning of a steep climb. In contrast, Prager was already right at the top alongside Emmerich Knoll and Josef Jamek. At that time Wilhelm Schwengler, then director of the region cooperative winery - now Domäne Wachau - was also widely regarded as an important figure. And this is just how the picture shifted just during the time I followed developments in the region!

Told this way those 38 years look like a short time, but let me flip that by telling you how since a couple of years I have been closely following the efforts of a third generation at Prager. I started out with Franz Prager in 1988, who took me extremely seriously and was one of the winemakers who enabled me to get to grips with the Wachau during the late 1980s. He made stunning wines right through the 1970s and 1980s. Just a couple of years later with the 1990 vintage his daughter Ilse and her husband Toni Bodenstein landed a coup with their incredible wines of the 1990 vintage, most importantly the dry Rieslings from the Achleiten and Klaus sites. Within a few years Prager was a name that was internationally recoginzed, but this is a story too long and complex to tell now. Since shortly after the death of Franz Prager in October 2019 Toni and Ilse's son Robert Bodenstein and his wife Sophie (maiden name Sophie-Helen Hinterhölzl) have been responsible for the wines. This makes me look like the living fossil - „with the emphasis on living!“ - that I so often tell people I’ve become. As Friedrich Nietzsche once wrote, "the context is the facts."

PART TWO: No, I'm Not an Innocent Bystander

I was not an innocent bystander during this period, nor am I now, but, frankly, I find the idea that a journalist can be objective absurd. It supposes that somehow she or he can stand far enough aside from events and describe them viewed from outside completely absurd. To my mind, there are no innocent bystander journalists, and the the far more important question is how deeply a journalist digs to get at the truth. And every form of journalism demands choices about what it is newsworthy and what is not. The film director Wim Wenders recently wrote that the cuts which filmmaking demands are lies, but the fact is they come with the territory, just as decisions do with journalism. Even if an eternal camera that never ran out of memory could be manufactured, then the movie it shot would start at a certain point in time and the camerman / director would decide which direction to point it in. Most of the world would always be outside the camera's field of view! The truth of journalism is decisions, decisions, decisions,  and that of filmmaking cuts, cuts, cuts!

This leads to the story of how at the end of October 1993 my then wife, the journalist Ursula Heinzelmann, and I took a night train from Hamburg to Vienna, then another train on to the Wachau where we spent a week helping Toni Bodenstein harvest and press the first Riesling TBA dessert wine in the history of the region. A few bottles of Prager wine were the only payment for our toil. The wine turned out very well, although the Riesling TBAs Toni Bodenstein made in 1994 and 1997 were clearly superior. When it comes to wine criticism the only important question is if you are honest or not. I always said to winemakers who I became friendly with - and there was a large number of them - that they shouldn't imagine that our friendship will make me more friendly to their wines. Some decided they couldn’t accept that, and a number of these friendships ended abruptly as a result.

There was no such break of this kind in my relationship with Toni and Ilse Bodenstein, nor do I see any signs of that having happened to any of my colleagues. So, why did the reputation of Prager slowly drift off during the early 21st century? Well, Toni acquired a number of other functions such as a seat on the advisory board of a major cooperative bank, and also became the mayor of Weissenkirchen. For quite some years I saw a lot less of him than before, and I wasn't the only one. Did this lead directly or indirectly to a gradual erosion in the standing of the Prager winery? Perhaps, because reputation is a very fickle thing. At the time it struck me that the wines remained every bit as exciting as before, and in my book Best White Wine on Earth (pub. 2014 in New York by Stewart Tabori & Chang) I wrote the following:

„Toni’s Riesling Smaragd stand out for always being fresher and brighter in aroma than those fromother members of the Wachauer Quartet…usually they have great balance,arevery pure in flavour and have a mineral freshness that is a delight. The thing that makes them really compelling is their intense terroir character; each really does seem to taste of a very particular place.“

Shortly after this book was published I visited a tasting in a cool New York City wine store and there behind a table was Robert Bodenstein - for me, suddenly - a young adult and a winemaker. The previous time I’d seen him he was still a teenager with more interest in cannabis than wine (as I was at the same age). So I was aware of the third generation at Prager almost 12 years ago. The truth is that I was too distracted by life in New York City to quickly follow up. It wasn't until I started tasting the Austrian wines for James Suckling in 2017 that the contact was renewed. Then opening photo documents that process, just as the one below does in a very different way.

PART THREE: Prager & the Bodensteins Now  

2026 is a good moment to take stock, also because 2025 was Robert Bodenstein’s 6th vintage as winemaker. When a winemaker’s first one or two vintages work out well there might be an element of luck present, but after five or six that factor is more or less out the window. And so I tasted a range of wines, primarily from Robert's period as winemaker, but also going back further to compare Before and After. The first observation I have to make as aresult of this will surely strike many of the sensation hungry wine freaks as extremely boring: at Prager there’s a remarkable stylistic continuity. However, a second observation is necessary to put this into what strikes me as the right perspective: the people making the wines now are different to the previous generations. 

Toni Bodenstein is an intellectual who can transport listeners back to 1920 or 1290 with ease, and the stories that he tells are never synthetic history. At these moments time feels elastic and he seems to be the world’s oldest person, yet posessed of great youthful curiosity. Likewise, Toni can condense the geology of the Wachau into a 15 minute mini-lecture, or fill an entire evening with the subject. Many times I sat in stunnned disbelief as he launched into yet another subject I had no idea he knew his way around far better than I did. 

In the first moment Sophie Bodenstein seems like the exact opposite of Toni: exotrovert, dangerously amusing and uninhibitedly joyful. And although all this is no illusion, she’s also a thinker, but in a more practical, less abstract way than her father-in-law. Sophie comes from Rossatz, on the opposite bank i.e.  “dark side“ of the Danube, and is 4 years younger than Robert. She got to know him when he was her Mathematics tutor for half a year, „all we did was mathematics, but I didn’t understand anything!“ However, she scraped a pass in maths at her final school exams. Then, one thing lead to another, as they tend to do, and they’ve been together since July 2013. Her view of All Things Prager is that of someone with - mentally - one foot inside and one foot outside, which isn't suprising when you consider she worked for many years in advertising, in London, Barcelona, Frankfurt and Norway. She's a restless person, but also a bit restless when it comes to the future of Prager, according to the motto: more must be possible, but how?

Robert ought to be easier to describe given that I’ve known him for so much longer, but after I started writing I found it was way more difficult than I'd expected, and not only because he asked me not to use some of the most quotable things he said. They speak for the sharpness of his samurai sword-like mind, as does his quotable objection to, "intellectualism that’s deliberately exaggerated to the point of incomprehensibility.“ I entirely see the logic in this: an intellectual who claims to be liberal and believe in openness, then acts in a way that shuts out the merely intelligent in oder to create a clique (or is it a sect?) of the few who (claim to) understand them. I hope that this story doesn’t fall into that category!

I just discovered Robert’s musical side in the form of a single called Still There that the group N.E.R.O. released in 2012, and learned that he was also in bands called Folded and Ant Antic. Still There is self-confidently modern for someone who often gets pushed into the Traditionalist pigeonhole (mainly because he looks like his father did when young). I feel sure there are other important sides to Robert that I don't know anything about, and my guess is that there are many of them. Surely, learning about them will revel other sources of inspiration for what are some of Austria and Planet Wine’s most distinctive wines. So, I can only attempt a provisional conclusion:

It feels to me as if another stage in the development of the Prager estate is just beginning. What it will bring I can’t say, but at this very high level development is all about fine tuning, and not pretending you can reinvent the wheel! However, I know from my own work as a scriptwriter how sometimes a small shift in a story can dramatically increase the suspense.

36 wines tasted (between January and May 2026), including one with 99 and four with 98.

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GRÜNER VELTLINER

Prager  Wachau  Grüner Veltliner  Vom Tagwerk Steinfeder  2025 - 11% / Very zesty, this remarkable Steinfeder is brimming with white pepper, green and lime aromas. A joyfully vibrant wine that is way more expressive than the majority of this category. Even a touch of pink grapefruit! 92 (SP)  

Prager  Wachau  Grüner Veltliner  Ried Hinter der Burg  Federspiel  2025 - 12.5% / The youthful white tree fruit aromas,including white peach, pull you into this quite concentrated and beautifully balanced Grüner Veltliner. In spite of the generous green fruit flavours on the palate this remains cool and restrained, then comes a wave of green pepper and garden herbs at the finale. 93 (SP) 

Prager  Wachau  Grüner Veltliner  Ried Pichlpoint  Federspiel  2025 - 12% / A really refined wine for this category with excellent concentration and a lovely silkiness. Delicate Mirabelle fruit, then plenty of mineral and spice at the very long clean finish. Cask sample, of the only 2025 not yet bottled. 94? (SP) 

Prager  Wachau  Grüner Veltliner  Ried Achleiten Smaragd  2025 - 13% / Youthful nose of orange blossom and spring meadows. An exceptionally mineral Grüner Veltliner with intense smokiness. Excellent concentration yet the wine is so  straight and precise. Mountain stream purity and freshness at the finish! This really deserves some timein bottle, but it is alreadyreally delicious. 96 (SP)

Prager  Wachau  Grüner Veltliner  Ried Achleiten Smaragd Stockkultur  2025 - 13.5% / Extremely complex garden herb, summer vegetable and white tree fruit aromas, including white peach, even a touch of mangosteen! Restrained richness and creaminess are married to great tension on the palate. The minerality builds and builds at the spectacular finish. From vines planted in the 1930s. 97 (SP)

Prager  Wachau  Grüner Veltliner  Wachstum Bodenstein Smaragd  2025 - 13.5% / A real mountain Grüner Veltliner with fresh white tree fruits, wet-stone minerality and terrific tension. That’s not just because the wine has a healthy acidity, rather also the crisp and slightly „green“ tannins. Very long, tightly-wound finish. 96 (SP)

Prager  Wachau  Grüner Veltliner  Ried Zwerithaler Kammergut Smaragd  2025 - 13.5% / Hang your nose into the glass and let yourself dissolve in this poolof wild herb and vegetal beauty! Extremely young and a bit closed now. As it aerates the white peach aroma expands and expands. Very concentrated, yet almost weightless. Then you sink into a fjord of wet-stone minerality and become one with the universe. From vines planted in 1907! 99 (SP)

Prager  Wachau  Grüner Veltliner  Ried Achleiten Smaragd  2024 - 13.5% / A wealth of white flowers and pear aromas with delicate notes of white pepper and smoke make this a delightful, rather than imposing high-end Grüner Veltliner. Wonderfully fresh and vibrant for a high-end wine from this grape. Sleek and focused finish with intense wet-stone minerality. 95 (SP)

Prager  Wachau  Grüner Veltliner  Ried Achleiten Smaragd  2023 - 14% / A rich and concentrated Grüner Veltliner, but with none of the exotic fruit aromas you usually find in such wines. Instead, its ripe stone fruit aromas that dominate the rich, yet silky palate. And the thread of minerality that runs through this is as straight as an arrow, keeping it as fresh. However, I do feel the alcohol slightly at the finish. 94 (SP)

Prager  Wachau  Grüner Veltliner  Ried Achleiten Stockcultur Smaragd  2023 - 14.5% / The deep nose of Mirabelle plums and ripest pink grapefruit pull you into this stunning Wachau Grüner Veltliner that has great freshness in spite of the serious concentration. There’s a massive structure here, and the finish is very compact with a wealth of wild herb aromas. Excellent aging potential. From vines planted in the 1930s. 96 (SP)

Prager  Wachau  Grüner Veltliner  Wachstum Bodenstein Smaragd  2023 - 14.5% / In the nose and on the front of the palate this has such an enveloping great spring meadow character that it’s really hard to believe the wine has 14.5% alcohol. Terrific bergamot freshness at the verylong and energetic finish. A unique wine in the context of this extremely ripe vintage! 96 (SP) 

Prager  Wachau  Grüner Veltliner  Ried Zwerithaler Kammergut Smaragd  2023 - 14% / At once enormously concentrated and every bit as refined, this is a gentlegiant amongst the high-end Wachau Grüner Veltliners! Incredible wildherb delicacyand stony filigree. This youthful 2023 slowly unfurls its long and brightly lemon yetllow flag in the glass. Incredibly silky and subtle finish that doesn’t want to stop. From vines planted in 1907! 98 (SP) 

Prager  Wachau  Grüner Veltliner  Ried Achleiten Stockkultur Smaragd  2022 - 13.5% / Just beginning to pick up the first hint of bottle maturation. Creamy and concentrated with steamed zucchini and lentil character alongside the Reine Claude plum fruit. Very long, compact finish with well integrated fine tannins. I would wait for more bottle aged character to develop. From vines planted in the 1930s. 96 (SP)

Prager  Wachau  Grüner Veltliner  Wachstum Bodenstein Smaragd  2022 - 13.5% / For the challenging vintage this has a stunning brilliance. That, and the fresh tannins, give it a wonderful tension and make it feel a lighter than it really is. However, there’s no mistaking the concentration of its core or the intensity of the stony minerality at the very long, almost austere finish. 96 (SP)

Prager  Wachau  Grüner Veltliner  Ried Achleiten Stockkultur Smaragd  2020 - 13.5% / I love the dried orange peel, candied pineapple and Mirabelle plum character of this deep and complete Grüner Veltliner. Round and mouthfilling, but with a lovely freshness that drives the long texturally complex finish. From vines planted in the 1930s. 95 (SP)

Prager  Wachau  Grüner Veltliner  Ried Zwerithaler Kammergut Smaragd  2019 - 13.5% / This squares the circle of high-end Grüner Veltliner creaminess, ripe melon fruit, textural complexity with a fantastic minty and mineral freshness that build a great harmonious whole. From vines planted in 1907! 96 (SP)

Prager  Wachau  Grüner Veltliner  Wachstum Bodenstein Smaragd  2018 - 13.5% / This has the boldness and forthrightness of this are absolutely typical for the hot and dry vintage, but the vitality that’s married to them is astonishing for 2018. Great energy, even if the acidity is moderate. Powdery tannins give the finish a unique mouthfeel. 95 (SP)

Prager  Wachau  Grüner Veltliner  Ried Achleiten Stockkultur Smaragd  2017 - 14% / A very big wine in spite of the excellent freshness, and this makes a very bold statement. A touch on the broad and warm side, but this is packed with a combination of cooked quince and lentil flavours. The generous tannins support all this well. From vines planted in the 1930s. 93 (SP)

Prager  Wachau  Grüner Veltliner  Ried Achleiten Smaragd  2016 - 13% / Now fully mature, but with plenty of life left in it. Stacks of Mirabelle plum and pomelo fruit are married to discrete creaminess, fine tannins and a lively acidity. Anything but fat at the long, stony finish. 95 (SP)

Prager  Wachau  Grüner Veltliner  Ried Achleiten Smaragd  2015 - 14% / At once rich and bright with mellowed power and an animating acidity this charismatic Grüner Veltliner has terrific concentration and great white tree fruit aromas. Only just coming into its best form, but decades of potential. 96 (SP)

RIESLING

Prager  Wachau  Riesling  Ried Steinriegl Federspiel  2025 - 12% / This cool and crisp dry Riesling makes me think of a peach that ripened on a low solar flame in the Far North, but it’s also dangerously refreshing thanks to the forthright acidity. Super-crisp with a tense interplay between limey freshness and stony austerity at the finish. 93 (SP)

Prager  Wachau  Riesling  Ried Achleiten Smaragd  2025 - 13.5% / If you were looking for the classic Wachau dry Riesling this would certainly be a candidate thanks to its refined stone fruit aromas plus the notes of blossoms and yuzu. Very elegant and silky with underplayed power. You could think that this is not completelydry due to the wonderful mid-palate fruit, but it’s properly dry. Then comes fantastic delicacy at the very precise, intensely mineral finish. 96 (SP)

Prager  Wachau  Riesling  Ried Klaus Smaragd  2025 - 13.5% / A mountain stream flows over a cliff and a mist of (paradoxically) exotic flower and fruit aromas as it tumbles into a deep verdent valley. The cool purity means you don’t think for a minute about the exalted ripeness of the grapes from which this unique wine was made. Totally straight and refined with enormous energy. 98 (SP)

Prager  Wachau  Riesling  Wachstum Bodenstein Smaragd  2025 - 13% / Welcome to the Alpine meadows in the first flush of spring with all the herbs and flowers. Very sleek and focused with a really high acidity for the Wachau, but this gives it brilliance and drive. 95 (SP) 

Prager  Wachau  Riesling  Ried Achleiten Smaragd  2024 -13% / The super-bright white peach and white flower aromas are delightful. Very crisp and bright with less richness than many recent vintage, but very straight and precise with plenty of lime and wet-stone minerality. 94 (SP) 

Prager  Wachau  Riesling  Ried Achleiten Smaragd  2023 - 13.5% / The ravishing nose ofwhite peach pulls you into this super-elegant expression of this very ripe vintage. Beautiful wet-stone freshness and underplayed power on the very focused palate. Enormous vitality at the finish! 97 (SP)

Prager  Wachau  Riesling  Ried Klaus Smaragd  2023 - 13.5% / The Dark Side of the Riesling Force finds delicious and dynamic expression in this great masterpiece from the 2023 vintage! A deep well of wet-stone minerality into which Riesling fans are encouraged to throw themselves. 98 (SP)

Prager  Wachau  Riesling  Wachstum Bodenstein Smaragd  2023 - 13.5% / What a fantastically elegant and silky dry Riesling given the enormous ripeness of the vintage. The mountain freshness on the windswept palate transports you to the peak of the Wachau’s coolness. 98 (SP)   

Prager  Wachau  Riesling  Ried Klaus Smaragd  2022 - 13% / So straight and focused, this hyper-mineral dry Riesling bowls you over with its energy. Intense white currant and a wet-stone flavours with an incredibly long finish of crystaline purity. 97 (SP)

Prager  Wachau  Riesling  Wachstum Bodenstein Smaragd  2022 - 13% / This breathtaking Wachau Riesling deftly combines the typical ripeness of the region with an astonishing elegance on the concentrated and complete palate. Then, the salty minerality cascades over you at the brilliant finale. 97 (SP)

Prager  Wachau  Riesling  Ried Achleiten Smaragd  2020 - 13.5% - There’s an excellent harmony on the front- and mid-palates with stacks of stone fruitflavours, but then, there’s a touch of greenness at the finish. 92 (SP)

Prager  Wachau  Riesling  Wachstum Bodenstein Smaragd  2017 - 14% / Rich and mouthfiling this has enormous depth of tropical fruit flavours, and the mango intensity easily obscures the alcohol. Extremely long, dense and polished finish. Moderate acidity for this high-altitude vineyard site. 94 (SP)

Prager  Wachau  Riesling  Ried Klaus Smaragd  2016 - 13% / What a peachy beauty! This is now in near ideal mature form. Then, with aeration wild berry and herb aromas. A touch of toasted white bread. Fabulous elegance, the herbal and wet-stone freshness driving the very long, cool finish.  96 (SP)

Prager  Wachau  Riesling  Ried Steinrigl Smaragd  2013 - 13% / Delicate peachy fruit with a twist of black berries and a freshness that’s really astonishing for this age. Darkness at the edge of town. So much energy, so focused. Very crisp, youthful finish. 95 (SP)