Emrich Schönleber

A great Nahe estate that was started by Werner Schönleber in the 1960s with just two hectares. Today the estate comprises 14 hectares, mainly Riesling, on the slate and quartzite soils of the Halenberg and Frühlingsplatzchen vineyards. Intense vineyard work and spontaneous fermentation in old oak casks together with ageing in steel vat conspire to produce intense, long lived Nahe Riesling that combines floral, charming qualitites with intense minerality. For the last five years, this estate has been perfoming to is maximum, rivalling Germany’s very greatest producers.

2023 Vintage: Weingut Emrich-Schönleber reflects on a year in which demand continued to grow and the 2022 vintage sold out in record time. Initially, it looked as though 2023 would help them ease some of that pressure as the crop was hanging in good volume and in excellent health come mid-summer. In the Nahe, like elsewhere, water supply was better than in most recent years, conditions oscillating between sunny and dry phases and short phases of rain, which Frank explained nourished the soils and filled the water table, in the way that irregular heavy downpours do not. “We had no issues with spoilage and had ripe and healthy grapes in the main. Potential sugar levels were increasing at the right times. The last stage of ripeness came quickly so we had to move quickly. In the end, ripe grapes turned to over ripeness and rot with little warning, so we had to be selective in the later stages, cutting back some parcels by a lot while others were perfectly healthy.” The Grosses Gewächs are the headliners here as usual, being supremely elegant and pure in their individual ways. They are routinely amongst the most acclaimed dry wines in Germany. However, a canny buy this year is the Monzinger Halgans which not only comes from young and not-so-young vines in the Halenberg, but also from declassified vines in Auf der Ley – a single vineyard plot which is used for an auction-only dry wine which tends to land at more than double the price of the Halenberg. The fruity wines are full of lift and high-toned aromatics with a reserved, backlit sweetness and cool, classy feel.