‘Bring me Sunshine’ - VDP Wine from Germany
During the fourteen years I led the German jury at the World Wine Awards, one of my particular pleasures was the annual VDP tasting in Wiesbaden in the last week of August. With the possible exception of American ex-servicemen who occupied the heights of the city during the Cold War, outside Germany few people are aware of the beauty of the Rhineland spa town. The story goes that the American Air Force was driven off target by high winds and failed to obliterate the city. In the centre it is mostly early Biedermeyer surrounded by concentric rings of late Biedermeyer blocks of flats and huge villas that climb all the way up to the city’s remaining vineyard on the Neroberg. Today Wiesbaden reeks of prosperity; many of its inhabitants work in law or finance in Frankfurt which is only half an hour away on the S-Bahn.
The neo-classical Pump Room in Wiesbaden is where an international group of German wine-lovers tastes the latest Grosses Gewächs (grand cru) releases from the VDP, the club that brings together almost all the country’s top estates. It is no picnic: there are around 450 wines to get through in two quite short days; but with a measure of German efficiency it is just about feasible if you concentrate. You order flights of six wines which are brought to your seat in rapid succession and that way you can knock off 300 on the first day and despatch the last 150 before you go home.
‘Grosses Gewächs’ needs a little explanation. Put out of your mind the sweet or semi-sweet wines you might associate with Germany. These are properly dry whites (chiefly Rieslings) and reds (mostly Pinot Noirs) produced in small quantities from top classified vineyard sites with strange and often rather poetic names. They are not cheap either. They sell in Germany for around €25 – €30. Don’t imagine anything selling in Britain for much under £35.
Invitations to the tasting are not easy to procure, and the British contingent is tiny. One person I saw there once was Richard Bampfield MW, Lidl’s buyer for Britain and Ireland. Richard was impressed and dreamed of bringing the tasting to London and the Institute of Masters of Wine. This he finally succeeded in doing on 17 October this year.
It wasn’t the whole shebang, that would have been impractical, but we had 150 wines, a hundred whites from the 2018 vintage and a third of the tasting was made up of reds, chiefly from 2017. Tasters had about two-and-a-half hours to get through it. I did all the whites, but failed to manage the reds.
It was a hot, dry year, conditions perfect for making dry white wines and reds with strength and colour. Alcohol levels are high, with 13.5 in the northerly Mosel, Saar and Ruwer and 14 in southerly Franconia. If you are looking for bone-dry Riesling wines with body, it is (with one or two exceptions) an ideal year. This vintage – 2019 – was also hot and dry, and should be similar for those who picked before the rain arrived in the last third of September. Anyone who waited for a ‘Golden October’ is likely to have needed to discard a great many rotten grapes.
The 2018 Mosel-Saar-Ruwer Rieslings are perhaps the least typical, but that is not to say they are not enjoyable. My favourite Mosel wine was probably the Brauneberger Juffer from Fritz Haag, but the Bernkasteler Doctor from Geheimrat Wegeler, and the Piesporter Goldtröpfchen from Nik Weis were not far behind. From the Ruwer my top wine was the Herrenberg from Maximin Grünhaus, and from the Saar, Schloss Saarstein.
The Rheingau and the Nahe which faces it across the Rhine both disappointed me. Both have produced excellent dry whites since the 1990s and the Nahe often makes the best Rieslings in all Germany. I gave no top marks in the former and few to the latter. The best Nahe for me was Dönnhoff’s Niederhäusener Hermannshöhle but it was certainly nudged by the Kruger-Rumpf ‘Im Pitterberg’.
Rheinhessen, between Mainz and Worms, is not usually my favourite German wine region. It is really three areas: the south-east facing ‘terraces’ above the Rhine, the hinterland, and the Wonnegau in the south. On the evidence of these wines, however, I’d say that Rheinhessen had had an exceptional year with the laurels going to Kühling-Gillot for his Niersteiner Ölberg and Gröbe’s Westhofener Aulerde in the Wonnegau.
Similarly the Pfalz, or Palatinate, seems to have prospered, which is not always the case in hot years. The Pfalz is ordinarily one of the warmest parts of Germany, and a heat wave can lead to overly alcoholic wines that lack the finesse you would associate with great Riesling. This year, however, many of the big names seem to have been ready for it and the ‘Three Bs’: Bürklin Wolf, Bassermann-Jordan and von Buhl in Deidesheim were all on top form. The first two made wonderful wines on the Ungeheuer (or ‘Monster’) site, while the latter excelled in the Jesuitengarten. As Bismarck allegedly said ‘Dieses Ungeheuer schmeckt mir ungeheuer gut’ (‘This Monster tastes monstrously good to me’). In Franconia, the best Riesling came from Horst Sauer’s Am Lumpen.
Riesling is not Germany’s only green grape and Franconia is better known for Silvaner. In 2018 there were some whacking great Silvaners, but the most pleasing examples came in the form of the Staatliche Hofkeller’s Stein in Würzburg itself and the Mönchhof from Bickel-Stumpf. My last non-Riesling recommendation would be the Weisser Burgunder (Pinot Blanc) from Rebholz in the Southern Pfalz, the quaintly named ‘Im Sonnenschein’ – or ‘in the sunshine’.
The problem is where to find top German whites in Britain these days. Hock and Mosel used to be the daily tipple of the so-called ‘establishment’: generals, diplomats, judges, politicians, dons… I don’t suppose there are so many now who stray across the Rhine for their wine, and when they do, they often prefer the more traditional sweet or semi-sweet wines marked ‘Kabinett’, ‘Spätlese’ or ‘Auslese.’ Possibly the best solution is The Winery in London’s Little Venice. German wine enthusiast David Motion can answer your needs. He has a mature 2012 Kühling-Gillot Ölberg at £44.99, for example, and much more besides.
