Germany hasn’t exactly had it easy over the past few harvests, but boy did the top growers pull it out of the bag time and again. Conditions in 2015 were famously auspicious, while the years around it threw up more than their share of challenges and heart-in-mouth moments. What materialised, however, is little short of miraculous – as these wines predominantly from ’16 show.
What follows, then, is a raft of dry wines from top sites to kick off your summer of Riesling…
ANSGAR CLÜSSERATH – MOSEL
2016 Ansgar Clüsserath Trittenheimer Apotheke Riesling Trocken RRP $90
Don’t be deceived by the rather shy first impression. This still has some yeasty notes from the long, wild ferment. It also has great candied-citrus and dried-herb notes. At once richly textured, finely nuanced and light-footed on the palate, it builds up to a great crescendo on the very long, super-mineral finish. Drink or hold. 94 points. Stuart Pigott, jamessuckling.com September 2018
HEYMANN-LÖWENSTEIN – MOSEL
2016 Heymann-Löwenstein Kirchberg Riesling Grosses Gewächs RRP $74
A dramatic and complex dry Mosel Riesling even if it has done some malolactic fermentation (there’s a hint of butter which ought to integrate with bottle age). Lots of green chilli aroma alongside the ripe fruit, then the spicy finish kicks in and leaves you in no doubt. Better from 2018 through 2035. 93 points. Stuart Pigott, jamessuckling.com September 2017
2016 Heymann-Löwenstein Röttgen Riesling Grosses Gewächs RRP $94
This makes me think of the first pineapples that reached Europe and were more highly-prized than any other fruits. Very concentrated and ripe, but not at all heavy this is a luscious dry Mosel Riesling that great energy and originality. Drink through 2040. 95 points. Stuart Pigott, jamessuckling.com September 2017
2016 Heymann-Löwenstein Uhlen Blaufüsser Lay Riesling Grosses Gewächs RRP $108
MAGNUM RRP $215
What a great combination of ripeness (and a hint of caramel) with racy freshness! This is another stunning dry wine from Heymann-Löwenstein that is at least as much shaped by the vineyard site as the house style of its maker. Drink through 2040. 94 points. Stuart Pigott, jamessuckling.com September 2017
2016 Heymann-Löwenstein Uhlen Laubach Riesling Grosses Gewächs RRP $115
MAGNUM RRP $230
This very concentrated wine makes you feel that you are floating on the clouds that hang in the Mosel Valley before and during the harvest. There’s plenty of acidity in here, but you barely feel it directly, and once you sink into the depths of the finish it’s difficult to climb out again. Drink now and for some decades to come. 96 points. Stuart Pigott, jamessuckling.com December 2017
DR LOOSEN – MOSEL
2016 Dr Loosen Wehlener Sonnenuhr Riesling Grosses Gewächs RRP $74
The 2016 Wehlener Sonnenuhr Riesling GG Alte Reben offers a clear, refined and delicately flinty bouquet of ripe white fruits and crushed minerals with lovely purity. Round and lush, this is a full-bodied, intense and elegant Sonnenuhr with a powerful finish. Fine tannins here and good texture. The acidity is salty-piquant and perfectly integrated. This GG is clearly characterized by its long aging on the lees, which adds texture and finesse. Long and salty in the finish. A lovely wine — lush and vital and always piquant. 94 points. Stephan Reinhardt, Wine Advocate April 2018
2016 Dr Loosen Ürziger Würzgarten Riesling Grosses Gewächs RRP $92
The 2016 Ürziger Würzgarten Riesling GG Alte Reben is clear, deep and flinty on the nose, with herbal and mineral aromas as well as great purity and precision and a touch of tropical fruit aromas. Salty-piquant and enormously lush but also salty, this is a gorgeous Riesling with very fine tannins, stimulating crystallinity and mineral freshness. This is another highlight of the Loosen crus in 2016. This has great finesse and elegance and is enormously mouthwatering in the finish. Impressive. 95 points. Stephan Reinhardt, Wine Advocate April 2018
2015 Dr Loosen Ürziger Würzgarten Riesling Grosses Gewächs RRP $92
From 80 to 100-year-old vines (mainly in the Urglück parcel), the 2015 Ürziger Würzgarten Riesling Alte Reben GG has a deep, pure, clear, intense and fascinatingly aromatic bouquet of small and spicy, thick-skinned yellow plums and peaches; there are also some smoky and flinty aromas from the red volcanic Würzgarten soils. On the palate, this is a super clear, vital and elegant Riesling in perfect balance. Tasting almost like a Nahe (Felsenberg) Riesling, its refined acidity and overall finesse is clearly Mosel. The finish is long, fresh, clear and aromatic, and reveals stimulating grip and tension. This is another great and age-worthy, dry Mosel cru that Riesling lovers should not miss. 93+ points. Stephan Reinhardt, Wine Advocate April 2017
2014 Dr Loosen Ürziger Würzgarten Riesling Grosses Gewächs RRP $92
The 2014 Ürziger Würzgarten Riesling trocken GG Alte Reben shows a lovely purity and flintiness on the deep nose, which displays notes of crushed stones, lemon juice and also ripe fruit pips. Rich, ripe and piquant on the palate, this full-bodied Würzgarten is very mineral, but also has a certain sweetness and juiciness that is almost rounder than round, and results in a big and more opulent Riesling. 93 points. Stephan Reinhardt, Wine Advocate March 2016
2016 Dr Loosen Erdener Prälat Riesling Grosses Gewächs RRP $182
The 2016 Erdener Prälat Riesling GG Alte Reben displays a deep and flinty-scented bouquet of crushed stones. Pretty coolish even though the vineyard is located straight down in the Mosel Valley, near the river. This has great purity and very delicate yeasty flavors. Terribly lush and salty-piquant on the palate, this is a round and elegant, highly complex and persistent Riesling with very fine tannins and melting salt from up to 130-year-old vines. It is powerful and intense in the aftertaste but still finessed and pure—a great wine from a great terroir. Enormously long and complex. Only two fuders were made. 13% alcohol. Tasted February 2018. 96 points. Stephan Reinhardt, Wine Advocate February 2018
2015 Dr Loosen Erdener Prälat Riesling Grosses Gewächs RRP $182
The 2015 Erdener Prälat Riesling Alte Reben GG is very clear and intense on the nose, where tropical fruit flavors intertwine with smoky red slate, herbal and lemon aromas. This Riesling is full-bodied, rich and lush, but fresh and highly finessed on the palate. This is a very complex and tightly woven, pure and salty, but nevertheless aromatic Riesling; it has concentrated yellow plum and stone fruit aromas. The finish is gorgeous for intellectual wine lovers, as well as for hedonists. The Prälat, though located straight under Loosen’s old vines Treppchen plot and closer to the Mosel river, seems even purer and finer than the Treppchen GG, which is more lush and creamy, showing more tannins. This is an amazing Riesling and the finest dry Prälat I have probably ever tasted. It is ready to drink, but folks, don’t be foolish! Keep it for years and drink it as many times as possible. Just one fuder produced, so less than 1,000 litres. 96 points. Stephan Reinhardt, Wine Advocate April 2017
2014 Dr Loosen Erdener Prälat Riesling Grosses Gewächs RRP $182
Grown beneath Loosen’s Treppchen Grosse Lage plot, the 2014 Erdener Prälat Riesling trocken GG Alte Reben displays a deep, rich and intense, yet also subtle bouquet with herbal, nutty and slate-like flavors. Very elegant and round on the palate, with lots of salt and minerals in the finish, this is another big and very expressive Riesling grand cru with an impressively long and complex finish. As always, the Prälat is richer and more creamy textured than the Treppchen GG, and its fruit is a bit more tropical; but it is the lingering salinity and the ripe acidity that makes this an extraordinary Riesling. 94 points. Stephan Reinhardt, Wine Advocate August 2015
GEORG BREUER – RHEINGAU
2016 Georg Breuer Riesling Schlossberg RRP $162
}The 2016 Rheingau Riesling Rüdesheim Berg Schlossberg has a very clear, deep, pure and flinty bouquet of bright fruit and crushed stone aromas. This is absolutely fascinating in its purity, finesse and complex elegance. Round and terribly lush on the palate, with very fine tannins and ripe, crystalline acidity, this is a highly elegant, delicate and complex Riesling that is enormously filigreed yet tensioned and long. A goddess of the greatest finesse and elegance. The sweetness, body and minerality are in perfect balance. 95 points. Stephan Reinhardt, Wine Advocate December 2017
GUNDERLOCH – RHEINHESSEN
2016 Gunderloch Pettenthal Riesling Grosses Gewächs RRP $96
Still rather closed this is a very concentrated wine with a beautiful balance that makes it taste less powerful than it really is. Major minerality at the very long, powerful finish. And all this at just 12.5% alcohol. Better from 2018. 95 points. Stuart Pigott, jamessuckling.com September 2017
2013 Gunderloch Pettenthal Riesling Grosses Gewächs RRP $74
The 2013 Pettenthal Riesling GG was picked 24 October with 94° Oechsle and fermented to 12.38 % of alcohol with 6.5 g/l of residual sugar. The citrus/straw yellow wine has a greenish shimmer and displays a deep, rich, ripe, precise and complex nose with well concentrated lime and white peach aromas along with subtle, spicy/mineral and herbal flavors on the transparent and very elegant nose. Full-bodied and elegant, this salty and multi-layered wine is very well concentrated and quite powerful but very well balanced. Still too young and somewhat austerely piquant it needs to have another three or more years of bottle aging. 93 points. Stephan Reinhardt, Wine Advocate October 2014
2016 Gunderloch Rothenberg Riesling Grosses Gewächs RRP $107
MAGNUM RRP $280
A super-elegant and filigree wine that is both deep and finely-etched with a very long pure finish that’s as straight as a laser beam! Best from 2018. 95 points. Stuart Pigott, jamessuckling.com September 2017
2014 Gunderloch Rothenberg Riesling Grosses Gewächs RRP $96
Pistachio extract, smoked meat, kumquat and orange mingle in an impressively intense nose, leading to a piquantly nutty, citrus zesty palate impression that happily also displays plenty of bright primary juiciness and admirable transparency to nuanced mineral and carnal notes. The finish is mouthwatering and energetically lingering. This fermented to near-absolute dryness yet is neither at all alcoholically freighted nor austere. It should age impressively, but there’s no reason not to enjoy some now. 92 points. David Schildknecht, Vinous Media May 2016
KOEHLER-RUPRECHT – PFALZ
2016 Koehler-Ruprecht Kallstadter Saumagen Auslese Trocken RRP $114
This wine’s 12.5% alcohol (at analytically nearly complete dryness) reflects virtually the highest achievable must weights for Koehler-Ruprecht in this vintage – barely crossing the legal threshold for Auslese – and very little fruit reached that point. Alkaline and saline sea breeze, smoky marjoram, pungent lemon zest and corn shoots with high-toned evocations of sour mash, gentian distillate and mothball make for a head-turning aromatic display. The silken, almost custardy palate brims with bright fresh lemon, sweet corn and white peach while perpetuating haunting florality. But the overwhelming and striking palate impression is of a multifaceted mineral suffusion and protein-rich savour, featuring Chablis-like suggestions of sweat, oyster liquor, chicken stock, chalk dust, and invigorating piquancy of lemon seed. This shakes up your entire mouth and milks your salivary glands. Good luck resisting the next sip, or indeed cellaring and then trying to keep your corkscrew away from sufficient bottles to insure that you enjoy at least some of them in what is sure to be an even more glorious maturity. This bottling is set to go on sale in September 2018. It’s hardly a coincidence that few dry Pfalz Rieslings today quite measure up to either the best of those being rendered by Sona and Schmitt, or the minuscule quantities of Riesling from this same site being bottled by Sona’s former boss and Koehler-Ruprecht proprietor Bernd Philippi. 95 points. David Schildknecht, Vinous Media June 2018
2009 Koehler-Ruprecht Kallstadter Saumagen Auslese Trocken ‘R’ RRP $163
This bottling has been out for nearly two years but I have noticed some still on the market, and it is showing too impressively today not to advertise its virtues with an updated tasting note. A high-toned nose mingles corn shoot, sour mash, kirsch, mothball, fresh ginger and distilled floral essences. The silky palate displays a subtly sweet sense of sheer ripeness despite analytical dryness, with hauntingly floral inner-mouth perfume and forest floor undertones that act like a plush carpet of moss over which plays a kaleidoscopic display of floral, fruity, spicy, subtly peaty and otherwise multifacetedly mineral elements. Incidentally, the starting point here was not significantly higher in must weight than were the grapes for two dry 2009 Spätlesen, so the designation “Auslese” was chosen entirely based on the wine’s personality and its (correctly!) perceived aging potential. 95 points. David Schildknecht, Vinous Media May 2016