Geology
What separates Preussen from much of the surrounding Vienna vineyard is its bedrock. Rather than the loess that carries most of the city's Grüner Veltliner, the site rests on weathered shell limestone (Muschelkalk) over a calcareous bedrock, interbedded with sandstone and marine sediments. In the upper part of the vineyard the rock reaches the surface, and chunks of limestone turn up in the topsoil. Weingut Cobenzl describes calcareous clay soils on its parcels, while Wieninger notes that the sandstone's high quartz content and lower lime work in synergy with the limestone. This calcareous foundation is the reason the site is planted so heavily to Riesling, a variety well suited to limestone, alongside Grüner Veltliner.
Name and history
The vineyard is named for Heinrich Preussel, a royal councillor who held the Urfar of Nussdorf as a fiefdom from 1277 to 1288. An Urfar was a landing place for ships and boats with docking rights, a valuable Danube holding first recorded in the 11th century. The name has stayed attached to the ground ever since.
Producers and wines
Several Viennese estates farm Preussen. Weingut Wieninger, whose home vines sit on the broad crown of the Nussberg known as the Platte, works about 1.11 hectares of the site and bottles it as a single-vineyard Riesling and Grüner Veltliner at the top of its range. Weingut Wien Cobenzl and the joined estates of Mayer am Pfarrplatz and Rotes Haus also bottle Preussen as an Erste Lage Riesling, and Fuhrgassl-Huber holds parcels here as well.
The Rieslings share a recognizable stamp. Wieninger's is built on concentrated apricot and jasmine with orange zest and what the estate calls the typical Nussberg smokiness, firm and powerful on the palate, with a salty finish it attributes directly to the shell limestone. Cobenzl's shows peach and elder over a juicy, mineral structure and a long, saline close. The through-line is that limestone-driven salinity, which is what the site has become known for.