Our buyers are recently returned from Germany where they were putting pen to paper and getting to grips with the upcoming 2021s. A vintage of chiselled charm and enlivening freshness, there is much to get excited about come September when our En Primeur offer is released. In the here and now though, buying trips such as these provide plenty of opportunities to check-in on other recent vintages at a time when the Rieslings are less marked by immediate youthful exuberance and race.
Broadly speaking, the 2018s have shed a lot of their early flesh and have taken on an altogether tender, charming personality, carried with a finesse and silky mineral complexity that makes many so lovely to drink now. While the 2017s were born with higher levels of concentration and extract, these are starting to come around too in places, in a more detailed, spicy and restrained manner, as some particularly impressive dry wines from the Pfalz attested to. The 2016s have retained the tension and pared-back, cooler fruit profile that so appealed from the beginning, whilst just starting to take on a creamier, more mineral authority in the dry and Kabinett levels – a vintage that was a little overlooked after 2015, it is one that, especially now, will appeal to classically leaning palates.
Read MoreBelow you will find a selection of German Rieslings that, although young in the grand scheme of things, would not constitute a crime to open now. On the contrary, with summer upon us, there is no grape to equal Riesling’s ability to refresh the senses with such levity and grace
For full tasting notes on the wines please click the links below.