It is very hard to travel out to a region with the intention
of tasting the latest vintage without having heard or read somebody’s views on
it. These days there seem to be no end of people desperate to evaluate a
vintage as early as possible. Everyone wants the first scoop, regardless of
whether the wines are in a state that allows fair evaluation. During this most
recent trip I even heard of notes being published from cloudy, still fermenting
tank samples. Now I may be wrong, but it seems to me that unless you are a
highly practiced winemaker, this is surely simple conjecture? Be that as it
may, many had put forth their views and as a result my mood as I prepared for
my trip was somewhat pessimistic. To put it bluntly I feared painful teeth and tart, rather aggressively acidic wines.
But let it be known here, straight away: my fear was
unfounded – there are some very good wines in this vintage. Indeed there are
some that rank in the realms of truly excellent. Make no mistake, no-one is suggesting that
this was an easy vintage. In fact, as late as the start of October many growers
feared a truly disastrous vintage.
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| The village of Oberhausen, in the Nahe. |
Refreshingly, none of the growers I saw tried to pretend
that October was a delight. There was no golden autumn here. There was plenty
of warmth, but it was accompanied by plenty of rain. The conditions were perfect
for the spread rot, which would have been fine if ripeness had already been a
fait accompli. But as it was, the final days probably caused more than a few
local grey hairs as ripeness, acidity, and botrytis (the last bringing with it
a rapidly decreasing yield) converged upon a sweet spot with lightning speed. Blink, and you would have missed it.
The problems started at flowering. After a cool, damp start
to the year, a protracted flowering started later and lasted longer than usual.
In many places it was still going on right up to the end of June. Such a
delayed, stop start beginning to the season laid the (rather unstable) foundations
for the vintage, producing uneven clusters of grapes that were going to require
ripening well into late October. July and August provided a crucial fillip
being hot and relatively dry, but come September cooler weather had returned,
notably during the nights. By late September acidity levels were high, ripeness
seemed a long way off, and neither situation looked like changing any time
soon.
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| The view from the top of Wehlener Sonnenuhr, looking downstream to Graach and then Bernkastel, in the distance |
So far so bad, eh? Well, it certainly seemed that way, and
yet somehow I saw an enormous amount of wines to get excited about. I should
caveat this by acknowledging that the growers I saw represent the crème de la crème
of Germany’s winemaking talent, but truly growers from all regions reported
their own surprise at what a successful and balanced set of wines they had
turned out. Certainly this is a vintage of high acidity, but not so high as to
make the wines either difficult to taste or difficult to enjoy. And while acidity
levels are definitely higher than in 2012 and 2011, they are actually slightly
lower than in 2010. Furthermore, the type and character of the acidity seems
completely different to 2010 being riper, less nervous and less concentrated. The
wines have edge and a certain driving focus, but it seldom comes across as aggressive,
in spite of marginally lower than usual Oeschle levels.
How is this balance so? Put simply, the presence of high
levels of extract with very complex minerality seem to have bonded with these
high levels of tartaric acidity to form a tripod of structural elements that
against all the odds have created wines of high focus and balance. These are
not Rieslings which drip with sun-drenched fruit. They are built on more earth-bound
lines than that. But that is not to say they have no fruit - many have wonderful
fruit of sometimes startling clarity, but it is invariably set amidst scenes of
high minerality and palpable extract. Savoury, salty notes compete with clear golden fruit
and botrytis, when it is present, is almost exclusively of the very fresh,
clear and pure type.
I have no doubt that it would have been a very easy vintage
in which to make bad wine. Talking to people across the regions it seems there
are no shortage of wines which have required excessive de-acidification
resulting in flat wines that lack energy. Growers had to make the correct decisions
not just at harvest, but right the way through the season. If you didn’t put
the work in from day one, this was a
vintage which would really show it. If your vines weren’t in exceptional
condition come October you were in for some serious problems. Furthermore, come
harvest, at breakneck speed you had to make the right call as to what and how
many wines you were going to attempt to make. At JJ Prum, Katharina decided
that to make a range of Spatlese she would have had to pick wines with
acidities and unripe fruit profiles that simply would not have made for
harmonious wines. As a result it was a brief tasting at this great estate; we started
with an estate Kabinet, moved straight up to four Auslese and finished with a
pair of Auslese Goldcap. What they’ve made is glorious, how much they’ve made
is not.
For virtually all the growers I saw the greatest problem this year is quantity.
Yields for growers in the Saar, Mosel and Ruwer are down by approximately 50%.
In the Nahe, perhaps the region least affected by the weather gods, they are
down about 20%. In the Rheingau, depending on where your vineyards were, you had between 20%
and 40% less wine. The biggest reason for these figures was the accelerated onset
of botrytis. Come harvest, day by day, growers saw their yields decreasing as
grapes shrivelled in front of their eyes.
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| The Helden vineyard in Niederberg, with Brauneberger Juffer Sonnenuhr in the distance |
So how will it go down in history? One thing that is clear
that this is a vintage for Riesling lovers. From recent vintages there are
elements from 2004 and 2008, some 2010 and maybe a touch of 2012 too. It will
appeal to people who enjoy wines with mineral, cool fruit characters, but also
those that love Germany’s diversity, for amongst all these factors, including
the presence of much botrytis, the specific characteristics of site are
particularly well articulated. It should appeal to lovers of the Grosses
Gewachs, built as they are in the mould of the 2004s, or 2008s, with alcohol
levels perhaps a degree lower than 2011 and half a degree lower than 2012, and
highly complex mineral flavour profiles. And it will appeal to those who are
interested in buying focussed, filigree and classically styled ‘pradikat’ wines
with strong mineral personalities, very clear fruit, high ripe acid levels and
the core density to last an extremely long time in the cellar.
The run of top quality Germany vintages continues. Lovers of
these great wines have arguably never had it so good.
Julian Campbell
Buyer, Justerini & Brooks.
