2018 Dönnhoff Oberhäuser Brücke Riesling Auslese Goldkapsel

Dönnhoff

Germany / Nahe / Dönnhoff

Dönnhoff's monopole directly by the river, on ancient rock with clay slate bedrock, covered by a layer of loess loam. With a perfect microclimate for great noble sweet Riesling wines. Vines aged 25 to 35 years old yield about 20 hl/ha for this wine. 100% selective hand harvest. Fermented and matured in stainless steel vats. A crystal clear, noble sweet Riesling of great aromatic complexity with an elegant mineral acidity.

December, 2019

Nick Stock

JamesSuckling.com

97 points

This is a very contrastive sweet wine with sliced melon, white peaches and honey. Dried fruit. Full-bodied yet compact and tight, giving it an agile tension. Fresh and energetic acidity. Salted caramel aftertaste. Great wine. One for the cellar. 1,200 bottles. Drink now or hold.

May, 2019

Julia Harding MW

JancisRobinson.com

17.5/20

Even greater citrus purity here than on the Niederhäuser Hermannshöhle Auslese. Full of pure apricot fruit, sweet but harmonious. Generously fruited and really exotic. Indulgent.

October, 2019

Stephan Reinhardt

Wine Advocate

96 points

The 2018 Oberhäuser Brücke Riesling Auslese is perfectly clear and fresh but still intense and concentrated on the spicy and complex nose. Lush and piquant on the palate, this is a fresh, stunningly pure and playful Brücke that is singing and dancing on the knife's edge. Fabulous in its purity, tension and finesse. Nevertheless, there is the ripeness you can expect from an Auslese. Tasted in July 2019.

June, 2020

David Schildknecht

Vinous Media

93 points

Like its Hermannshöhle counterpart, this Auslese, picked in mid-October, reflects genuinely botrytis-free grapes, related Dönnhoff, but ones that were too numerous and too high in sugar to have used them elsewhere, “and certainly not in the Grosses Gewächs, which would then have ended up with 14% alcohol.” Quince and red raspberry jellies coolingly infused with honeysuckle and green herbs inform the nose and the soothingly, seductively creamy palate. There is a lovely sense of lift throughout, but especially on the finish, whose liqueur-like sense of fruit and herbal essences is reinforced by prominent sweetness. If this fails to exhibit the sense of clarity and animation of the corresponding Hermannshöhle, Dönnhoff suggested that that reflects the absolutely optimum bunches in the Brücke having been left hanging for what became a Beerenauslese.

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About Dönnhoff

Helmut Dönnhoff and son Cornelius make the best wines in the Nahe region and some of the finest anywhere in the world. We can't possibly overstate how much we cherish and revere these wines. They are sheer perfection in their elegantly defined structure and flawless harmony. The epitome of their meticulous winemaking is the Eiswein. Dönnhoff wines have such power and complexity that their signature weightlessness seems nigh on miraculous. One taste and you sense the magic. These wines are on a par with the best of Germany in a very unique way: the sweet wines rival those of Prüm, Loosen and Egon Müller and the dry wines are mentioned in the same breath as luminaries such as Wittmann and Weil. Very few - if any - have this degree of versatility...

About

Cornelius Dönnhoff bears with him the promise and burden of great expectations. Dönnhoff’'s world-renowned Rieslings were first carried into the international limelight by his father, but now it is the son assuming an increasing share of the responsibility for the estate in the small town of Oberhausen on the Nahe (population 400). “No one knows the Nahe, but everyone knows Dönnhoff,” they say in the USA. And with the recent conclusion of his seventh vintage, this young, university-trained viticulturalist has every reason to smile. He won three consecutive Feinschmecker Cups for his dry Riesling collection, and in 2012 the simultaneous distinction of both “Estate of the Year” and “Best White Wine Collection” from the renowned Eichelmann wine guide. In 2014 Stuart Pigott named him Winemaker of the Year in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. Cornelius acquired his initial winemaking experience at his parents' estate, followed by an apprenticeship at the Dr. Heger wine estate in Ihringen. University studies in viticultural techniques in Bad Kreuznach came next, followed by time abroad in New Zealand and Australia. In 2007 he assumed the role of cellarmaster at Dönnhoff and currently runs the estate together with his father.