After a week spent tasting samples across Germany’s finest
regions there is no doubt in my mind that 2015 is a very special vintage indeed.
The vintage’s weather patterns can be summed up as follows:
a mild winter followed by an early flowering. Warm, at times hot early season
weather; July and early August hot and dry, worryingly so at times, then a cool
veering on cold September with bountiful and welcome rain. Finally, a fine,
very dry October with plenty of sunshine but cool days and cold nights,
providing steady slow late season ripening and very little loss of acidity.
What is so interesting about the wines in the vintage is the
combination of sunshine and freshness. The early blast of ripening has created
wonderfully full fruit profiles, while the cool weather of September and
October has allowed the grapes to retain analytically high acidity levels,
providing an invisible framework of freshness for the finished wines. Never
have I tasted such impressive wines that were at the same time, such a joy to
taste young. Those that are familiar with the specific features of particular
sites will find this vintage a delight, because while there is a charm to these
2015s, it never serves to obscure the tell-tale markers of a vineyard. Those
coming new to Germany’s great grape will find plenty to love because the wines
are simply delicious young. The ability to provide, as Oliver Haag put it,
“something for everyone”, is a rare and special trait in a vintage.
We’ve made a selection this year based on the wines that we
loved. Some younger vine plots, and those in the warmer sites, didn’t quite
retain the focus and cool composure that we sought. We will not be offering
them. The best sites however, have become magnified by this rare year.
Interestingly, it is hard to select a level of wine that has fared best. There
are some of the finest dry wines we’ve ever come across, with traditional dry hot-spots like Monzinger (Emrich-Schonleber) and Florsheim-Dalsheim (KP Keller)
producing Grosses Gewachs on a magnificent scale, alongside less traditional
trocken producing regions like the Mosel finding dry brilliance with a range
from Thomas Haag at Schloss Lieser. In the Rheingau August Kesseler
continues to exploit the steep slate vineyards of Lorch to produce some of the
region’s most filigree dry Rieslings. Wonderful, dancing Kabinetts, Spatlese
and Auslese have been produced in the Saar and Ruwer (Maximin Grunhaus and
Zilliken), Mosel (across the board) all the way down to the Nahe and
Rheinhessen. Many have produced wonderfully true Kabinetts of just 40 grams of
sugar, with intense flavours alongside keen acidity levels and finishes that
seem almost dry. There are Spatlese that float and Auslese that crackle with
energy and focus, the product not of heavy botrytis but of healthy shrivelled
grapes. Beyond Auslese, into Goldkap and Langhe Goldcap I found myself
searching for new adjectives with which to elegantly sum up the sensations
these wines produced. There’s a vividness, intensity, and weightlessness to
them that is absolutely thrilling. Further up the Pradikat scale at
Beerenauslese and Trockenbeerenauslese there are wines that simply need
to be tasted to be believed. If you’re looking for a wine to lay down for
generations to come, you need look no further. Seriously high acidity levels
have been fused into the fruit and extract of these fine wines so imperceptibly
that they leave no hard edges, no spike of acidity, just lift and life and
luminescence. Down in the Rheinhessen KP Keller likens the vintage to the
1971s, a vintage the quality of which his father, Klaus senior, was convinced
they would never see again. Here unusually the sweet wines vie with his great
dry wines for the Keller crown in 2015. Elsewhere growers were at a loss to
compare it to another vintage. “It’s absolutely unique, a weather pattern like
that” Frank Schonleber told us.
Our full 2015 release, from GG to TBA will accompany
our tasting on the 7th September. For more information on the
tasting please look out for our invitation email.