Frauenberg, Riesling, Grosses Gewächs, 2018
Airborne and super fine, this Frauenberg is not so showy or dazzling as last year’s version, the cool vintage offering layers of subtlety and nervy focus. As always, it shows notes of white stone lime and a briney salinity, tight and long with a light smoky stony finish. A very windy site that offers up light to the Hergott’s darkness. The soil is extremely rocky and stony, not heavy at all. Buffeted by wind from the Zellertal valley, sitting at 280m above sea level, this is always the last vineyard to be harvested, and the wines have an aromatic clarity that is second to none.
critic reviews
The nose exhibits sea breeze, celery seed, sage and smoked meats, collectively suggesting positive reductive influence and triggering the salivary glands. The polished palate is brightly juicy in its fresh, tangy evocation of grapefruit and lime, while perpetuating the mouthwatering salinity and meatiness intimated on the nose. The lingering finish follows suit, for a combination of refreshment and fascination guaranteed to draw you back for repeated sips.
The 2018 Nieder-Florsheim Frauenberg Riesling GG is clear and crunchy on the nose, very pure and stony and with bright rather than yellow fruit aromas. Concentrated yet fresh and, again, pure and with lots of salt. Very intense and tight on the silky, highly refined and purely mineral palate, this is an exciting and challenging Riesling with endless salinity and finesse but also complexity and grip. This is a great wine and certainly a long-distance runner that needs our patience. Tasted at the domaine in March 2020.