Germany 2012 – “grace and flavour”

Germany's great wine making regions make for a glorious buying trip when the sun is shining. When we arrived in the middle of June the sun unfortunately wasn't. Indeed, parts of the Rheingau had recently seen serious flooding. But nevertheless, the growers we visited, the elite by anybody's books, were cheeringly upbeat. As Carl von Schubert put, 'Riesling is the most innovative weed there is, capable of coping with even the most inauspicious of seasons'. The universal sentiment was that 'The vines maybe two weeks behind but they'll catch up. Nothing to worry about'. Plus ça change from the slightly more pessimistic 2013 outlook in other parts of Europe. By the time we left, temperatures well into the 30s seemed to confirm their optimism.

Dr. Carl von Schubert 

But of course, we were there to look at the 2012s; an unusual growing season that has produced a range of startling wines with characters and qualities that are almost incomparable in recent vintages.

The most universal and important theme for understanding the style of the wines in 2012 is the lack of botrytis. Across Germany rain at flowering led to coulure, or poor fruit set, which in turn produced loose bunches of small-berried, thick skinned fruit. As Klaus Peter Keller remarked, 'you can’t put in an order for berries like this, even if you’d always like to have them'. These loose bunches would become crucial to the success of the vintage, allowing botrytis preventing air to flow freely over the grapes as harvest approached. Widespread frost in October forced many to harvest then and there, with others such as Keller preferring to leave the grapes on the vines for a further week. Those that weren’t so badly affected by hail or frost, and who held their nerve, found themselves harvesting into November under sunshine and blue skies; ‘A golden autumn’ as Oliver Haag put it. This extremely long hang time allowed all the elements of the great Riesling grape to achieve full maturity in harmony, which, coupled with almost complete lack of botrytis, has given rise to grapes of startling purity, good must weights, fresh but most importantly ripe acidities and truly beautiful fruit characteristics. The only negatives are the small quantities and almost complete lack of noble sweet wines.

Keller Riesling Grapes 

In the Rheingau, where, as of 2012 the top dry wines will carry the Groses Gewachs designation rather than the Erstes Gewachs of old, we visited Spretizer in Oestrich, Weil in Kiedrich and further west, just around the corner from the great Rudesheimer Berg, August Kesseler. At Spreitzer the harvest came later than Andreas can remember in his 20 years of making wine at the estate, yet still they report acidities as high as ever before. Crucially, the long hang time meant their high levels of acidity are tartaric rather than malic, giving a ripe and juicy character to the wines rather than anything aggressive. Add to that the extended maturation of the flavours in each grape and the combination is one of flavoursome power, freshness and extract; a recipe for success in anyone’s book. The inimitable August Kesseler, in Assmanshauser described the vintage as a little 2001, a little 2004, and a little something else altogether. High ripe acidities and crystal clear flavours abound in August’s dry 2012s, while his reds from the richer 2011 vintage as good as we’ve seen from this estate – they will demand attention and further cement his reputation as one of Germany’s great Spatburgunder producers.

Across in the Mosel the word on everyone’s lips is ‘classical’. Yield are low, acidities are technically fresh yet come across as ripe, fruit flavours are clear and bright. It is telling that more than one producer we saw referred us back to vintages of old. The wines from Prüm, the Haag brothers, Willi Schaeffer and Zilliken (Saar) show high levels of finesse and elegance with strong slate characteristics and gloriously fresh Riesling fruit. The gamble for some was waiting to make the most of the Indian summer, which meant vineyard health had to be spot on. Those who had put the work in were rewarded with tremendous harvest conditions, giving rise to some of the most fleet of foot and alluring Rieslings we can remember at Spatlese level, the wines are masterclasses in effortless delivery of flavour and terroir definition, while at Auslese level the wines are intense yet immensely refreshing; the 2012 vintage truly shows off the Mosel at its dancing best.

JJ Prum Estate

In the Nahe both Helmut Dönnhoff and Frank Schönleber reported incredibly healthy grapes at harvest, indeed neither reported any botrytis whatsoever until as late as October. The rain that did fall in October was accompanied by cool temperatures allowing for a ripening of flavours and aromas without a great increase in sugars. As a result none of the Emrich-Schönleber  elegant Grosses Gewachs bottlings exceed 12.5% abv this year – a factor which merely enhances their pure drinkability without imparting any loss of flavour.  Dönnhoff's range, tasted at the end of a long day, should have been exhausting such is its size, but instead it simply blew us away. From the basic trockens up through some gloriously pure Grosses Gewachs and into the fruchtig range, Helmut, with the aid of his son Cornelius, continues to craft singularly pure Rieslings stamped with incredibly precise terroir characteristics. Together, these two growers continue to prove that the Nahe can produce wines on a par with any in all of Germany.

Our final stop was with Klaus-Peter Keller in Rheinhessen, a producer with a cult following who is doing more for the region than perhaps anyone else. Klaus-Peter was evidently and justly proud of his 2012s, describing the vintage as 'an affair of the heart; one of our favourite vintages' – and frankly we’re not about to argue. Keller’s wines are always marked by a sublime minerality. In 2012, the long hang time, 'like slow cooking', cool summer and large diurnal temperature swings at harvest time have produced multi-layered, profoundly clear wines, dry and sweet, of the highest pedigree. They will last a long time, yet like the very greatest of wines, are almost impossible to resist now.

**All the above wines will be offered in September following our annual German En Primeur tasting.

Helmut Donnhoff: Dry whites and Soil Diversity

Legendary Nahe winemaker Helmut Donnhoff took a few minutes to discuss with us the impace of the warming weather on acidities in his dry wines, and the relative effects of his slate and volcanic soils.

Germany: Day 3

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.