Kloster Eberbach: A tasting in the Rheingau’s spiritual home...

After an early start in London I’d arrived in Frankfurt, already running late for a very special tasting at the Kloster Eberbach.

Kloster Eberbach has played a key role in religion and winegrowing since its founding in 1136. Supported by the state for its ancient, cultural significance, this former Cistercian monastery continues to produce wine from some of the Rheingau’s most historic vineyards. There I would meet with the gregarious Andreas Spreitzer of Weingut Josef Spreitzer, and together with the great and the good of the Rheingau, we would taste the latest 2016 Riesling Grosses Gewachs (GGs) from all over the region. Following this would be a truly one-of-a-kind library tasting of single-vineyard state wines Marcobrunn and Hollenberg stretching as far back as the 1940s, before an evening revisiting a selection of the top 2015 Rheingau GGs at Weingut Robert Weil.

A lucky forty assembled around a long, banquet-style table in the winery. It would be a convivial and open forum through which the Rheingau’s VDP producers intended to taste and garner feedback on each other’s latest wines, as one by one each estate introduces their flagship 2016 Riesling GG to the room. It would be a rare opportunity to taste a breadth of top-level dry wines in the company of the region’s most experienced growers. So, what of them?

Well, much has been said of the difficult vintage conditions experienced in the first half of 2016. However, it’s not over ‘til it’s over! Soon in to the tasting, exclamations of “authentic!”, “classic!” and “sumptuous!” were echoing off the walls. I found many attractive wines. Naturally, acidity and concentration levels vary, encompassing a plethora of winemaking styles. But of all the top tier wines, recurrent themes in 2016 are sunny fruity flavours, savoury spices, and structurally charming, open profiles. Rieslings ranged from the light and steely to the baroque and gourmand. To my palate, the less successful wines were marked by muddled or prominently woody flavours and high alcohols, generally exacerbated by low acidity and/or overly phenolic textures.

The great diversity of dry Rheingau wine is down to the size and diverse vineyard topography of the region. Add to that key inclinations like cask and/or steel fermentation and maturation; extended skin contact; MLF; vine training and harvest dates, and its range is plain to see. In short, whatever your personal preference when it comes to shape and style, the Rheingau offers a veritable smorgasbord of excellent dry wine to choose from.

From the Justerini & Brooks portfolio, August Kesseler’s Lorchhauser Seligmacher is promoted to GG status for the first time in 2016, and is an absolute belter of a wine; lime and slate scented with grapefruit, raspberry leaf and steely, tropical flavours. Robert Weil’s Kiedrich Grafenberg GG is a very smart affair too, with cleansing, clear-cut citrus fruit, slate, earth, spring flowers, pink pepper and grapefruit - a classy wine of tension and extract.

Andreas Spreitzer and his team have been working hard in the vineyard to produce smaller bunches and thicker skins. In increasingly warm summers, this helps to retain more natural acidity and fruit concentration, with the dual benefit of building resilience to sunburn and other vineyard pests. The result is a Wisselbrunnen GG 2016 with freshness and plush, waxy lemons, yellow plums and mango fruit – a wine that is concentrated, stylish and beautifully textured. There were good showings too from Weinguts Kunstler, Diefenhardt and Prinz.

A quick word on 2015. Re-tasting a host of Rheingau GG 2015s a year on, there is no doubt that it is an extraordinarily great vintage. Nevertheless, they are at times very intense, with much more chewy extract and perceptible acidity than in 2016. In most cases the wines are still tight and powerful and do not have the immediate fruit and accessibility of 2016. They are widely expected to close down further and the best wines should be cellared for another five years.

Kloster Eberbach… where history burns brightly

The wine library of Kloster Eberbach is the largest in the world, rivalled only by Burgundy’s Bouchard Pere et Fils. This vast, ancient cellar houses Germany’s oldest wine, and stands proudly as a unifying symbol of the culture and history of the Rheingau region. We were therefore honoured to explore its hidden corners via a tasting of mature Kloster Eberbach Riesling and Spatburgunder from two of the Rheingau’s most acclaimed vineyards.

Marcobrunn is a south-facing 7 HA vineyard located in Erbach on the banks of the Rhine River which produces a full bodied style of Riesling with unctuous yellow fruit, honey and creamy melon flavours. The young vintages 2016 – 2007 were generous, ripe and round. However, the real interest was in the histories of the mature wines. For example, 1963 proved difficult in the Rheingau as extensive frost damage and a damp harvest meant diminutive yields. Healthy fruit was hard to come by and sulphur levels finished at around 50-60 mg/l - much higher than today.

On the palate; golden apples, leaves, figs, cloves and fresh ginger. A lift of residual sugar and smoke noticeable on the finish, but overall alive and well. 1942, by contrast, was an obviously frail wine. During the war there were few workers, and October brought with it very heavy rainfall. Ten women from neighbouring Hattenheim volunteered to collect grapes that had fallen to the ground and pick what was left on the vine. Unsurprisingly, ‘42 is a high acid vintage with no noble sweets. This bottle tasted of embers and orange peel, autumnal fruit and nuts with protruding acidity.

Hollenberg is an undisputed first class site for Spatburgunder. Here the state winery (Kloster Eberbach) still owns the largest slice of the vineyard and the wines benefit greatly from its deep slate soils. Notably steep, it faces south south-west and altitude ranges from 80-300m. As for the old wines, 1959 was considered of excellent quality potential thanks to a warm, dry summer. Today, it has impressive volume for a wine of its age, with plum liqueur, roasted coffee beans and orchard fruit, albeit in the latter stages of life. The 1957, aged 60, is leaner and meatier, more oxidative today and less friendly.

Finally, 1943 is believed to be the best of the war vintages and picking was carried out on 14th September by eight schoolgirls from Assmannshausen. An Indian summer and deep colours buoyed winemakers in troubled times. Today, this little piece of history is waning. However, it can’t fail to capture the imagination of what the world looked like then - and of wine’s unique ability - 74 years later, to bring together a diverse group of passionate people, to meet as friends, and taste from the same bottle, made all those years ago.