Welcome to Wine Wednesday, a thread where I’ll feature various producers from around the world – a mixture of mainstays and hidden gems – that I feel are worth taking home for self-study. For this week’s inaugural installment, we will examine a grape variety oft misunderstood by consumers: Riesling.
One of my friends is a Riesling fanatic. He reveres the grape to the point that he once lectured me ad nauseum about how Riesling is the “ultimate” grape variety. The rationale for his argument was that Riesling is the one variety used to produce wines of every conceivable sweetness level, with producers crafting styles from bone dry all the way to cloyingly sweet and everything in between.
When he first hit me with that idea, I dismissed his thinking as kooky. But the more time I spend thinking about it, the closer I find myself to agreement.
Riesling is indeed amazingly versatile. If you argue as my friend does that the multitude of ways producers choose to ferment a particular grape correlates to its greatness, you’d be hard pressed to find any variety quite so righteous as Riesling. Its resistance to cold and susceptibility to botrytis¹ make Riesling an ideal candidate for use in both ice wine (in parts of the world that freeze) and BAs/TBAs² (in areas of high humidity), while the grape’s hallmarks of high aromatic and acid levels also allow for the creation of beautiful dry wines.
Of the many regions known for Riesling production, none are more important than Germany. There are more hectares of vineyards planted to Riesling in Germany than in the United States, Austria, France and Australia combined.
Around 200 of Germany’s top producers belong to an organization known as the VDP³ – a self-monitoring group dedicated to protecting the quality standards of German wines. The Nahe wine region has a smaller number of VDP members (only 9 in total) than most of the more-prominent German appellations, but there are some very important properties here.
The Donnhoff estate has been in Nahe for more than 250 years, and today encompasses some 28 hectares that include 9 unique “Grosse Lagen” (exceptional vineyard sites). Donnhoff has mostly Riesling under vine and produces wines that mirror the mixture of igneous rock and sandstone soils found in the vineyards. There are many different offerings out of the Donnhoff estate – some are vineyard-specific (like the Oberhauser Leistenberg Kabinett) and some source fruit from multiple sites (as with the Trocken Riesling).
Donnhoff Estate QbA⁴ Riesling 2017
The QbA Riesling utilizes a selection of 15- to 30-year-old vines from top vineyards throughout the Middle Nahe grown using sustainable viticulture practices (Donnhoff is certified by Fair’n Green). The grapes are hand-harvested and fermented in a classic off-dry style and are then matured in stainless steel to preserve freshness. The Estate Riesling has a highly intense aromatic, with notes of tart mandarin and ripe key lime. A touch of residual sugar left behind rounds out the wine, adding in a hint of peach against naturally vibrant acid. A great indoctrination to the world of German Riesling or a solid reminder of what exactly those wines can be.
Also awarded 92 points by James Suckling.
Footnotes
¹ AKA noble rot, called “Edelfäule” in Germany – the same fungal condition that affects the vineyards of Sauternes and other high-humidity regions
² “Beerenauslese” / “Trockenbeerenauslese” – classifications that indicate elevated sugar levels due to botrytis
³ “Verband Deutscher Prädikatsweingüter”
⁴ “Qualitastswein Bestimmter Anbaugebiete” (Or just “Qualitastswein”) – the German indication of a “quality wine”
Free Run 