Springtime in the Nahe and it's looking extremely pretty as we snake our way down to Oberhausen to meet Helmut Donnhoff, a man full of the joys...and quite rightly so with a vintage like 2009 in his cellar. We tasted a really exciting trio of Grosses Gewachs (Grand Cru) that we will be offering come the first of September. The more we taste these intense dry wines from the region the more excited we get. The stringent vineyard grape selection and warmer recent vintages are giving really ripe, fruit acidities to balance the steely Riesling focus.At Emrich-Schonleber we tasted more superb 2009 Grosse Gewachs, followed by examples from 1999 and 2002 (at the time labelled Auslese Trocken). It was very revealing. These are quite evidently serious wines that can age wonderfully, gaining in complexity while losing none of their crisp, Riesling precision. Take note these are wines to watch.
Not to be eclipsed were the sweet wines. At both aforementioned estates we saw collections that resoundingly prove what an impressive a vintage 2009 is across the board. As Frank at Emrich-Schonleber commented, "there is less sharpness of minerality than 2008, they are bigger in body and very well balanced. They are perhaps closer to 2007, but with more finesse".
Our last stop of the day was with Klaus-Peter Keller who put the quality of 2009 down to a very cold second half of October. This "refrigerator temperature". period allowed the grapes to develop in complexity without increasing in must weight or decreasing in acidity. It's a truly great year here at Keller and undoubtedly one of the collections of the vintage.
