riesling

WELCOME BACK WEINBACH

We’ve been fans of Alsace for a long time, though we’ll also note that media coverage of the category has dwindled over the years. In any case, one of our favorites back in the day was Domaine Weinbach. A number of things happened to upset the proverbial ‘applecart’ roughly a decade ago. The untimely passing of Laurence Faller who was running the estate, and mother Colette, kind of put things in a bit of disarray. Laurence’s sister Catherine took the reins, and was later joined by her sons.

There was also a marketing decision to increase pricing to the upper levels of the category within that time frame. On top of that, we were presented the wine hardly at all. So when someone brought by examples of new releases from this esteemed house, we were pleased and kind of felt like you feel when an old friend you haven’t seen in a long time shows up for a visit.

While the quality is still top flight, a few things had changed. The prices, which at one time seemed a bit of a leap, now are fair market because the rest of the crowd has caught up. There were some new items, too, including a ‘house blend’ (called edelzwicker in this part of the world) that was a real real find.

Called Domaine Weinbach Alsace Les Vignes du Prêcheur 2020 (suckling 91, $24.98), this is a co-fermented blend of 40% Riesling, 30% Auxerrois, 20% Pinot Gris, 5% Muscat, and 5% Sylvaner from the “Prediger” (“the Preacher”) vineyard, located beneath the Grand Cru Kaefferkopf on sandy and clay stilts, that sees 8 months in neutral barrels. It delivers a surprisingly complex, extremely versatile new option in the Alsace.

Classic Weinbach in style with a broad, expressive palate of flowers, apricot and peach fruit, a pleasing touch of sweetness and acidity that cuts gently and decisively to the finish. Delightful, moderately priced for the Weinbach stable, and very versatile with all manner of foods from German/Alsace, to traditional grilled fish, to Asian dishes, though it is always interesting by itself.

We also have a couple upper cuvees from this esteemed house. The Domaine Weinbach Pinot Gris Cuvée Ste. Catherine 2020 (Suckling 97, $47.98) is rich in the midpalate but light on its feet with a touch of sweetness and a nice cut of acidity at the finish. Biodynamically farmed from old vines in granite soils from both monople Clos des Capucins and Cru Schlossberg.

The Domaine Weinbach Gewurztraminer Altenbourg 2020 (Suckling 98, $49.98) is everything one could want in a Gewurz perfectly proportioned. Altenberg is a lieu dit just below Grand Cru Furstentum and the southeast facing site has great sun exposure. Complex nose of flowers, honeysuckle, and nutmeg among other things, unctuous in the mouth but plenty lively.

Finally, the Domaine Weinbach Riesling Cuvée Colette 2020 is a cuvee named for mom from a plot of 40-year-old vines at the base of Schlossberg. Brown soils and granite rock yield a dry Riesling with both size and power, with floral, citrus, and the ever present, subtle streak of mineral.

We are thrilled to have these gems back in the house. Thai anyone?

2019: AN ‘EPIC’ YEAR IN GERMANY

Achtung! We interrupt this quiet holiday weekend with some potentially important news. The 2019 Germans are coming! In fact some of them are here, but we’ll get to that in a moment. For the most part the trade and the media don’t pay a lot of attention to German wines. When was the last time you saw a vintage report of German wines in a major wine publication. We thought so. For some reason these clean, precise, vivid wines have been ignored by the major media. A lot of wine folks don’t take the category seriously, and discourage others from exploring the category. Better to drink ‘orange wine’ many will tell you. What brought on this particular rant is that two publications have recently made major announcements about the 2019 Germans, and there appears to be genuine excitement. That hasn’t happened in a vary long time even though we have had some spectacular vintages in this century (2001, 2007, 2010, 2015).

It is interesting to note that the stories involved from the two critics are dramatically different in approach, but both ended up with the same conclusion…the 2019s are special. Though hampered by the pandemic, and fully admitting he didn’t have the chance to travel to the estates as he usually does, Wine Advocate’s Stephan Reinhardt encapsulated the message with the title “Glorious Twins” referring to the 2019 whites and the 2018 German reds (a category with an even smaller following).

While apologizing for not having been able to travel and even publishing some ‘barrel scores’ (pretty normal for reds but rather unusual for whites..but then these are unusual times), the gist of Reinhardt’s synopsis went like this, “The 2019 vintage has produced some of the greatest, finest and most energetic Rieslings of the last 20 years, especially in the Mosel, Rheingau, Nahe, Rheinhessen and the northern Pfalz. (I have yet to explore the Palatinate’s south in more detail, since Rebholz alone is not enough for a blanket judgment.) Although 2019 was everything but an easy vintage (with spring frost, heat waves, drought, hail and rain during the speedy harvest), yet even in August, not a single producer I have spoken with was expecting the qualities we have in the glass today.

“I consider the vintage as exceptional in terms of quality and styles. The finest 2019s are super clear, precise, pure and, strange enough, also coolish on the nose, while the palate reveals the intensity and concentration of a sunny vintage. Here, everything comes together and is balanced and also refined by absolutely incredible energy (due to the celestial alignment perhaps?) that is unrivalled. The acidity is enormously vital yet perfectly ripe and refined, giving the wines precision, elegance and finesse that makes their intensity weightless and leads to an exceptional finish and thrilling tension that nourishes my hope for exceptional aging capacity. The combination of perfectly ripe, healthy, concentrated fruit with vibrant energy and finesse in 2019 is extremely rare, if not totally unique. It makes for some of the finest estate and village wines I have ever tasted…”

We could go on but you get the point. What was perhaps even more surprising was when the James Suckling site essentially claimed this was the greatest German vintage ever. We wondered how many vintages he had actually tasted then remembered that his boots on the ground in Germany, Stuart Pigott, has been doing it as long as we have, starting with the 1983s. We have come across Pigott’s writings more than a few times over the years, and have had a few cases to respectfully disagree with some of his positions (as we have with everyone on occasion). But for someone of his experience to say something like this made an impression, “While the virus was ravaging Germany, the nation’s wine industry quietly released a slew of sensational wines that pushed us to write a headline for our 2020 Germany Report asking if 2019 is Germany’s 100-point vintage. For me, it was a breathtaking experience realizing what had happened and piecing together the story of how this great achievement came about. That sort of thrill is what being a career wine journalist is all about.”

Now Pigott is way more into the GG scene, Germany’s elite estate dry whites, than we are (if you want to spend a lot of money on dry Riesling, the Austrians like Knoll, Prager, etc. are where we turn). He speaks glowingly of the whole GG movement. But at the end of the day, he is clearly crazy about the vintage. So are we given a particularly limited exposure thus far. We did write, a while back, a glowing recommendation for the Dr. Hermann Riesling Kabinett Urziger Würzgarten Mosel 2019, literally the first 2019 we tried here. Subsequent tastings have served to support the premise that this is a fabulous vintage for Germans.

That being said, the acquisition of wines from the vintage may be difficult. Besides the effects of the lousy pandemic on distribution in general, we have no idea what the market is going to be able to offer. One of the top importers of German wines closed this year (though his former staff has joined and is fighting the good fight to carry on), and the other larger players (there aren’t that many) have appeared rather conservative in their offerings. So the ‘supply lines’ moving forward, even under the banner of an ‘epic vintage’, may be a bit uncertain for reasons that could fill a small novel. But we know all the cracks and crevices to look into, and our resolve will not be shaken. We love these wines and the specter of a ‘vintage of a lifetime’ might make more folks pay attention. Meanwhile we’ve got some pretty spectacular stuff already, including the #1 wine of James Suckling’s Top 100. Get in early! Show me the 2019 Germans

THE FUTURE OF GERMAN RIESLING: FEINHERB

The direction of German Riesling has changed dramatically over the last decade. There are lots of reasons. Part of it is market perception. In general, anything that is perceived to have any residual sugar is frowned upon by the new populace. Spätlese is viewed as ‘sweet’, even though the elevated acidity strikes an amazing balance with the complex hillside fruit of traditional German estate Riesling. Chardonnay is ‘dry’. Never mind that many of the Chardonnays the populace drinks have substantial sugars woven into their makeup, and much lower acidity.

The sommelier set, particularly those in Germany that have the ears of the vintners, claim that traditionally styled Rieslings don’t go with food. We’d love to debate that but the point is that they have been demanding searingly dry, skeletal trocken Riesling as the solution. Do they go better with food? Well some food, as long as you don’t care what the wine tastes like. The best examples of the genre are generally the ‘Grand Cru’ Trockens, designated as GG (großes gewächs). But while they have the peripheral fruit flesh that makes the style viable, they are erratic as a genre and typically cost $50 and up.

As we have stated many times, grapes should be made into the type of wine that best serves the varietal and the site. In this part of the world where it is colder, leaner structures and some sweetness are magic together. That may change with global warming, but it hasn’t yet. In the meantime some very talented German estates have figured out what we think is a way to please everyone. Over the years we have seen better and better examples of what are referred to as halbtrockens (literally ‘half dry’) a.k.a. feinherb, and this effort will be a game changer for a lot of folks.

The feinherbs have the firm backbone of great Riesling and, in concert with that acidity, have barely perceptible sweetness and finish dry. Perhaps more important is that, with just a bit more ‘fat’ on the ‘bones’, the palate feel is much rounder and there is a place where the remarkable fruit and complexity of some of these historic vineyards have a platform to express those qualities. To us, these are the answer to Riesling’s identity problem and a fantastic and versatile option for both food and non-food applications. We wouldn’t think of making a pitch like this unless we had a stellar example of the breed to make our case. This A. J. Adam Feinherb is uncommonly good for the genre and pretty sensational juice by any standard.

While we have been big promoters of German wines since the 1980s, and have worked with some producers for that entire stretch, we only became acquainted with A.J. Adam with the 2010 vintage. He has since become one of our favorite Häuser. The A J Adam Riesling Mosel in der Sangerei Feinherb 2017 can be considered a ‘best of breed’. Some folks might balk at a $40 fare for Riesling, but you can pay a lot more for wines that cannot touch this one. To us, this should be the future of the trocken movement…back off the trocken a little and make something that’s both enjoyable and food friendly.

Importer Terry Theise’s comments on this one are, “A cadaster parcel within the Hofberg, this has often been a beloved wine for me. This ’17 is quite serious, in the vintage way, not as suave as usual but with a different kind of grip and length. Half was lost to frost, so there’s just one Fuder, of an earnest, dark-toned mineral wine, with a pointed acidity that sucks up every one of the 25g/l RS.”

While perhaps less cerebral, Stuart Piggott’s comments on James Suckling’s website are certainly more to the heart of the matter, “Super peachy with great brilliance and refinement. This is a great Spätlese that’s dry enough for the finest lobster dish, but it is also powerful enough to cope with the spiciest curry. The very long finish keeps pumping out fruit and minerals. Drink or hold…96 points.”

This is the type of effort that will please people on both sides of the Riesling debate. By the way, if you are a fan of the more traditional Spätlese style, these guys make one of the best.

TROCKEN THIS, PART ONE: FRANKLAND ESTATE RIESLING

We know we have been a little harsh on the whole German trocken (dry Riesling) phenomenon. Some might have said, “ these guys say they love Riesling, what’s their problem”. Well, there are a couple of things. One is execution. Far too many are lean and skeletal as trocken wines. The fruity examples with a little residual sugar to counterbalance blazing acidity is a true joy to us. There’s nothing quite like a good traditional kabinett or spatlese anywhere in the wine world.

The other point is ‘why’? Why muck with a good thing? Plus, it has been done. The Australians and Austrians have been making compelling dry Riesling for a long time. There doesn’t seem to be a good reason to have another, less successful choice other than it’s German. But we are not here to bag on the Geremans (they are probably cranky enough after the 2018 World Cup). Rather we are here to praise some of the outstanding dry Rieslings that we do endorse.

We’ve been acquainted with the wines of Frankland estate for probably to decades. The story is always a bit puzzling. What possessed this family to head on out to one of the more remote parts of southwestern Australia to plant grapes is baffling. To take a chance on a varietal like Riesling that doesn’t perform just anywhere was a leap of faith. But they have become one of the icon Riesling producers in Oz and have developed a unique and flattering style. Delicate apple and pear, some pleasing citrus and floral notes, with a nice underpinning of a delicate earthy minerality, this is tender and fresh and lifted without being at all edgy.

The 2017 vintage in Australia is quite successful (a cracker!) and 2017 Frankland Estate Riesling is a beautifully composed expression of pristine fruit. Made from various parcels from the estate including some of the original vines from 1988 and a 2006 planting on an ‘ironstone’ ridge, it is a subtle, layered, mouth-watering, ‘pretty’ example of the genre from a very special, if really isolated place.

We aren’t sure how much of a ‘Riesling guy’ Advocate’s Joe Czerwinski, but he seemed to like this one as well, “Scents of lime blossom and orange sherbet practically erupt from the glass. The exuberant 2017 Riesling is medium-bodied with slightly rounded edges and hints at red berries to go along with all of the expected citrus and green apple notes. It’s approachable now but should continue to drink well for a decade or more… 91 Points!” This is how you trocken.