The mist was still on the Danube when I crossed the bridge from Stein to Mautern in the last week of October 2025. It was 09:00 and 6 °C, and the terraces on the north bank were already in sun while the south bank, where I was going, sat in shade until almost eleven. Mautern is the quiet side of the Wachau, opposite Krems and Stein, about 200 metres above sea level, and it is where the Austrian part of my year usually begins. Nikolaihof is a gate in a wall on Nikolaigasse, and the wall is older than the gate.
A cellar inside a Roman fort#
The Romans built the fort of Favianis here, on the south bank of the river that was their frontier, and the estate stands on its foundations. Walk down into the cellar and the masonry changes under your hand: Roman stone at the bottom, medieval above it, and above that the Saahs family’s casks. The estate’s own history says a synod met in the early Christian basilica on this site in 985, and that in 1075 it was recorded as a property of the Passau monastery of St. Nikola, which is where the name comes from. The Saahs family have farmed it since 1894.
Nikolaihof calls itself the oldest wine estate in Austria. Stift Klosterneuburg, downstream towards Vienna, makes the same claim on different grounds. I take no side; both cellars are older than most countries I tour.
Nikolaus Saahs, whom everyone calls Niki, runs the estate today. His parents, Christine and Nikolaus Saahs, took the vines biodynamic in 1971, years before the word meant anything in a wine shop, and the estate is Demeter-certified. Niki met me in the courtyard with a dog that plainly ran the place.
How I came to Nikolaihof#
My first Nikolaihof was a Vinothek Riesling poured blind at a trade tasting in Vienna, some years into my time as a sommelier. I called it a ten-year-old wine from a warm vintage. It was more than twenty years old, from a cool one. That mistake is the estate in a sentence: the wines age slowly, then hold.
I have been driving the 2 h 30 from Brno ever since, sometimes alone and sometimes with a minibus behind me.
Riesling and Grüner Veltliner on both banks#
The estate farms about 21 to 22 hectares, split between the Wachau and the Kremstal on the other side of the river. Roughly 55% is Riesling and 35% Grüner Veltliner, with the rest in small parcels of other varieties. The Wachau sites rise behind Mautern: Im Weingebirge, whose name means simply “in the wine mountains”, and the Klausberg above it. Across the water, the Steiner Hund terraces climb steeply above Stein and count as Kremstal, which is why the Riesling from there carries the word Reserve rather than a Vinea Wachau category.
Nikolaihof is a Vinea Wachau member, so the Wachau wines are labelled Steinfeder up to 11.5% alcohol, Federspiel between 11.5 and 12.5%, and Smaragd from 12.5%. All three are dry, hand-picked and free of any oak flavour, which suits a cellar whose casks are so old and large that they stopped tasting of wood long ago.
Biodynamics since 1971, and time as the main tool#
The farming is the part visitors ask about, and the honest answer is agronomic. No synthetic chemicals, no herbicides, compost from the farm, the biodynamic preparations sprayed in tiny doses, and a lot of hand work on slopes where no machine helps. I have written about biodynamics without the mysticism, and Nikolaihof is my standing example that it can be done for half a century without a slogan. The vines looked healthy in a wet October, which is the test that matters.
The cellar is where the estate is unusual. Fermentations are slow, in large old wooden casks, and the wines then stay in cask for far longer than the market expects. The Vinothek Riesling is the extreme case: it is left in wood for many years and released when the family decides it is ready. The 1995 spent about 17 years in cask and was bottled in 2012. Most Rieslings in the valley from that vintage had been drunk before this one was in glass.
“We do not make a wine ready,” Niki said, resting a hand on a cask that was older than both of us. “We wait until it is. The cask does the rest, and it is not in a hurry either.”
Seventeen years in old wood means the wine breathes a little every day, and in most cellars that would flatten it. Here the casks are large, the cellar is cold and the wines have the acidity to carry it. The result is not oxidative in the sherry sense, simply older than you expect and drier than it smells.
One glass: Vinothek Riesling 1995#
We tasted standing in the cellar at about 11 °C. The Riesling Vom Stein Federspiel 2023 first, lime and white flowers, quick and salty, the wine I would order in any Gasthaus along the river. Then the Grüner Veltliner Im Weingebirge Smaragd 2022, white pepper and lentil over a broad, dry body, the weight of a warm slope without any softness. Then Niki went to a rack at the back.
Lunch in the Weinstube#
The estate has its own restaurant, the Weinstube, in the old rooms off the courtyard, and on a Saturday it opens at midday. We sat under a vault with the mist finally off the river outside. Zander from the Danube in brown butter, with parsley potatoes and the Vom Stein Federspiel, the pairing every Wachau kitchen makes, and rightly. Then a plate of Backhendl with potato salad, and the Im Weingebirge Smaragd, whose pepper wants breadcrumbs and chicken fat.
The dessert was Kaiserschmarrn with Zwetschkenröster, stewed plums, because in late October the Wachauer Marille is long finished and the plums are not. Niki put the last of the 1995 next to it and said nothing. Dry Riesling with stewed plums should not work. It did.
Nikolaihof on tour#
On the Wachau day of my Austria wine tour, we spend the morning on the terraces above Dürnstein, then cross the river to Mautern for the afternoon. The estate’s Weinstube is open Wednesday to Friday from 17:00 and Saturday from 12:00, with the kitchen running to 20:00 and historical cellar tours during those hours, all by reservation, which I make well ahead. If you go alone, check the hours first.
For a group I ask for the three Vinea categories side by side, a Steiner Hund Reserve for the Kremstal contrast, and, when the family agrees, a Vinothek vintage. Guests who arrived thinking biodynamic meant cloudy and strange leave with a different picture: a Demeter farm, a classic cellar, wines that age for decades. Guests who arrived thinking Riesling meant German leave with another.
We drove out at 15:30 with the terraces on the north bank going gold and the ones behind Mautern already in shadow. Somewhere below the courtyard a cask filled the year my youngest guests were born was still not ready, and nobody was worried about it.
