Today, I explored a mixed bag at the „Grosses Gewaechs“ tasting of the VDP in Wiesbaden. Day 3 was about Riesling, some Silvaner and Lemberger. Like in the last days, there were many great wines, just a few disappointments and no big surprises.
I started with the remaining regions for Riesling, because I needed some electrifying acidity to energise myself. Rheingau was a perfect opening of the day and Peter Jakob Kühn again one of my favourites – especially with their spontaneous, wild but superb 2018 “Lenchen” and “Doosberg”. Doosberg is dense, raw, tight with yellow fruit, candid oranges, cardamon, muscat, salt. Lenchen even more „sponty“, deep, multi-layered, mineral, flinty with melon and candid turkish delight, refined and elegant.
Not on the wild side, but also excellent – Schloss Johannisberg 2019. Their monopoly site “Johannisberger” is crisp and elegant, cooler fruit with grapefruit, lime and white and lingering mineral finish. I also liked the “Roseneck” and the “Seligmacher” from August Kesseler as well as Weil´s stunning “Gräfenberg”.
Brilliant Rieslings from my home Württemberg. Rainer Schnaitmann´s “Götzenberg” 2018 was my highlight of these flights. Very intense and mouth-watering style. Ripe stonefruit, orange zest, herbs framed by a refreshing acidity. Long and focused finish. Ask for Lemberger? My swabian neighbours showcased solid efforts. Most interesting for me was a comparison of Lemberger 2018 from “Lämmler”. Matthias Aldinger´s version is elegant, reductive with oriental and christmas spices, pepper, wet stone and fine grained tannins. Rainer Schnaitmann´s bottling showed attractive cool dark fruit with smoke, minerals and a savoury herbal finish. The Lämmler of Heid winery was somewhere in the middle of both.
