Precisely 10 years ago, a poised, articulate young German sat in the CellarHand office and guided us through some striking wines from a biodynamic estate. This 24-year-old woman, fresh from working a Clare Valley harvest, declared her readiness to join her father at the head of the family winery.
Everything about Sophie Christmann’s bearing suggested she was right.
Roll on a decade, the Christmann estate in Gimmeldingen has undergone a surprising amount of change, chiselling its precious raw material into something even finer. The family co-runs a Sektgut producing sparkling wine to rival the top growers in Champagne. The Pinot Noir has undergone a revolution to earn its place among the best—and most dynamic—in Germany. And the Riesling, off an extremely high base, has become even purer, truer and more precise.
The vineyards, too, have been rejigged a little, with the Christmanns moving a couple of puzzle pieces around to ensure that everything fits perfectly. The result is 100% classified sites: 10 hectares designated Erste Lage—premier cru—and 8 hectares Grosse Lage. The makeup has shifted, too, from an 80:20 Riesling-to-other-varieties ratio to a two-thirds-to-one-third split between Riesling and Pinot.
What really counts is that this sharpening of focus has been characterised not by control-freakery but by confidence and freedom.
The Christmanns are enjoying the privilege of growing some of Germany’s most vital and expressive wines.
Sophie recently described her sense of fulfilment in a typically sanguine fashion. “We work in the vineyard, and we plant the vine, and we wake up at night, and we look outside and wonder whether the thunderstorm will damage our grapes or whether we will have rain or whether it will be dry,” she told the Vininspo! podcast. “And so we are very dependent on nature, and it’s a very humbling experience,” she says.
But she enjoys the creative, logistical, and strategic challenges of picking grapes and making great wine from them. She loves sharing her knowledge of the wines, seeing the fascination in people’s eyes when they visit and learn about the wine-making process on the family estate. Of course, she says, that range of demands makes a winemaker’s life more challenging each year. But the balance, if handled well, is beautiful.
And Christmann handles balance beautifully, as these 2024 Grosses Gewächs Rieslings amply demonstrate.
The 2024 is slender, bright and supple.
Anne Krebiehl MW, Vinous
THE WINES
2024 Königsbacher Ölberg-Hart Grosses Gewächs Riesling RRP $231
The core of the Ölberg site, the Hart, is located around the Ölberg chapel and is classified as a VDP.Grosse Lage. The soil is characterised by very heavy tertiary calcareous marl, the so-called terra fusca. In the topsoil, it is mixed with red sandstone rubble. The vineyard is located high up on the edge of the Haardt, at the exit of the Klausental of the Pfälzerwald. As a result, it is in the sun early in the morning, but just as early in the evening, it is in the shade of the mountains and gets a nightly stream of cool air from the valley. In the Mount of Olives, in the oldest part of the Hart Gewann, has long been our auction wine. Since 2020, we press from the whole Gewann the VDP Grosses Gewächs Ölberg-Hart. A fantastic wine. Slightly reductive, long and cool. – Steffen and Sophie Christmann
Ripe and concentrated yet also cool and precise, this is packed with stone fruit and mandarin orange aromas. There’s also tarragon freshness that deftly lifts the compact, medium- to full-bodied palate. Very long, still tightly wound finish. From organically grown grapes. Drink from release. 96 points. Stuart Pigott, jamessuckling.com Jul 2025
The 2024 Riesling Königsbacher Ölberg-Hart Grosses Gewächs is in the calcareous marl at the very heart of the Ölberg. Gentle reduction gives way to creaminess on the nose, with the slightest overtone of conifer. The palate has a smooth, cooling note of lemon that twinkles with hints of lemongrass and white peach here and there. The 2024 is slender, bright and supple. (Bone-dry). 94 points. Anne Krebiehl MW, Vinous Sep 2025
This is so luminous and fresh. Give it time. All the serenity is here.
Anne Krebiehl MW, Vinous
2024 Königsbacher Idig Grosses Gewächs Riesling RRP $240
The Idig is one of the most excellent locations in the Palatinate. As our monopole-like holding, it represents the core of our property. The wines produced here are among the style-defining wines in the GG category and are celebrated worldwide year after year. As part of the court chamber estate of the Palatine electors, our then-stately vineyard was first mentioned in a document in the 14th century. The monopole-like size of 4 hectares is in a uniquely prime location due to the more than 400 years of ownership by the Counts Palatine. The vineyard drops steeply to the south-southeast by Palatinate standards. Through the Klausental, however, a gentle wind constantly blows down from the Stabenberg, which consistently keeps the grapes healthy for a long time through its drying effect. The Idig rests on a mighty limestone massif formed from deposits after the collapse of the Upper Rhine Graben in the Tertiary. The topsoil consists of terra fusca, which was formed from lime and clay. In the topsoil, you will find countless limestones, but also some basalt, which was brought into the vineyard about 150 years ago from the Forster Pechsteinkopf by the von Buhl family, the owners at that time. – Steffen & Sophie Christmann
It’s hard to imagine a more intensely minerally expression of the riesling grape than this uncompromisingly stony wine. But behind this spectacularly geological personality is great stone fruit that expands in the glass. Very dramatic and precisely contoured in the huge finish. 98 points. Stuart Pigott, jamessuckling.com Jul 2025
The 2024 Riesling Königsbacher Idig Grosses Gewächs has a yeasty, youthful boisterousness that still needs to calm down. The palate, however, already has that smooth evenness and serene feel that always seems to be inherent in this site. There is a citric depth that shines with pure lemon zest but plunges deeper into profound coolness, made softer by lemony yeast. This is so luminous and fresh. Give it time. All the serenity is here. (Bone-dry). 96 points. Anne Krebiehl MW, Vinous Jul 2025
It comes together beautifully, holding quite some power.
Anne Krebiehl MW, Vinous
2024 Neustadter Vogelsang Grosses Gewächs Riesling RRP $240
Supplied to the Bavarian royal court in the 19th and early 20th century and sung about in poetry, the Neustadt Vogelsang has fallen into oblivion as a location due to speculation on building land. The magnificent nature led to a protected status, thereby preventing the construction plans. This is how the vineyard came into our hands in 2017. It is one of the most exciting projects in many years in the Palatinate and far beyond. The soil consists of more than 200-million-year-old shell limestone, which was exposed during the collapse of the Oberrheingraben (Upper Rhine Graben) and is unique in this form in the Mittelhaardt region. The vineyard slopes quite steeply to the south with a gradient of up to 50%. Due to its location at the end of the Neustadter Valley, at an altitude of up to 260 m, there are large temperature differences between day and night, which create a lot of tension in the wine. – Steffen & Sophie Christmann
Saying that this astonishing dry riesling tastes like pineapple chutney is the best way I can get across how different it tastes from everything else from this region. Still tightly wound on the concentrated and focused medium-bodied palate. With aeration notes of dried flowers develop. Extremely long, stony finish. The fourth vintage of this wine from a rare steep and south-facing site. From organically grown grapes. Drink from release. 97 points. Stuart Pigott, jamessuckling.com Jul 2025
