A Return to the Golden Age? German Winemakers Harness a Newfound Spirit

Everywhere I travel on Planet Wine I bump into self-identifying Acid Heads and German Wine Freaks. Sometimes they’re charming and knowledgeable but they can also be just another variety of 21st-century nerd. Many of them are trumpeting the 2024 vintage in Germany as a return to the Golden German Age when all the nation's wines were delicate and racy. And at first glance it looks like they’re right, but dig deeper – and we always do! – and a more complex picture emerges.

When climate change started making itself clearly felt in the winegrowing regions of Germany at the end of the 20^th century, it was frequently claimed that this development would make vintages more similar – with crispness and lightness morphing into richness and boldness. Although the speed of climate change accelerated a decade ago, this is clearly not the case.

The 2024 vintage was the result of a generally wet year. In fact, it was the rainiest of a trio of wet years: 2023, 2024 and 2025. A generation ago these would have been cool growing seasons, but the stats say that all three were at least as warm as 2003, the "Summer of the Century"! They followed quite closely on the heels of a trio of drought years, from 2018 to 2020, plus the hot and arid 2022. In spite of this flip-flopping back and forth in contrary directions, most German white wines have a remarkably consistently cool-climate personality.

The generally sleek, racy and aromatic 2024 German wines remind me of the 1986s, but there are a couple of very fundamental differences between 2024 and 1986 that have decisive influence upon the wines’ flavor profile. The first of these is the greatly increased ambition of Germany’s top winemakers, a subject that has been frequently described, also here. I think this in most obvious in challenging years.

Tasting the young 2024s at a number of leading winemakers, I struggled to adjust to the incredible wines I was experiencing. It felt like I had stepped into a parallel universe where the 2024 vintage was a very special one, instead of the good but unspectacular one it was elsewhere.

I am thinking particularly of my tastings at Günther Steinmetz and Julian Haart in the Mosel, Battenfeld-Spanier & Kuhling-Gillot plus Keller in Rheinhessen, Georg Breuer and von Oetinger in the Rheingau. There, ambition was complemented by precision and daring.

This group of producers never thinks about the economics of their situation when deciding how to react to changes in weather during the growing season or harvest – an uncompromising attitude virtually unknown in the Germany of 1986!

The second crucial difference between the middling vintages of the late 20th century and the 2024 in Germany is that climate change has greatly improved the general level ripeness, and this has as major positive influence on acidity levels.

“In 2024, although the sugar content of the grapes was astonishingly moderate and alcohol levels were therefore low, the physiological ripeness was there,” said Constantin Richter of the Max Ferd. Richter winery in the Mosel. “2024 is a bit like 2021, but with riper acidity.”

After tasting almost well over a thousand German 2024s, I agree with Richter on the lightness of body of the 2024s and the harmonious nature of their acidity. As young wines, the wines of 2021 often had a slightly sharp acidity and occasionally were rasping, which the 2024s very rarely have.

Richter was one of the most consistently exciting producers in the Mosel in 2024, and his wines, in common with most of his colleagues in the Mosel, are open and charming. However, even some of his wines are a point or two down on the best recent vintages.

Right across Germany, ratings for entry-level and village wines of the 2024 vintage were one to three points lower than those for the same wines from the riper and much more consistent 2023 vintage. And that’s a good result given the very challenging growing season.

May 2024 was a very wet month. The Saar, a relatively wet subregion of the Mosel, saw 177 millimeters of rain, and even in the historically dry Nahe 117 millimeters fell! Sadly, in late April the Saar and Nahe had shared spring frost damage with a number of other places in the Mosel region.

Burgundy got the same May to June 2024 rain as Germany, but because it came from the west, Burgundy got even more of it than Germany.  However, the consequences were much the same: downy mildew on the bloom. In 2024 the fruit set in Germany was better than in Burgundy, but it was still well down compared with 2023.

August 2024 was warm and dry, but September  2024 was another wet month. This time the rain fell very unevenly across the German wine regions. In the Saar there was 107 millimeters of rain, compared with exactly half that in the Wonnegau area of Rheinhessen. This delayed the riesling harvest, but there’s another side to the rain.

“Rarely have so many mineral salts been deposited in the grapes due to the almost constant saturation of the upper soil layers as in 2024,” Florian Lauer of the Peter Lauer winery in the Saar told me. “However, 2024 was about 1 degree Celsius warmer in the Saar than 25 years ago and 2.4 degrees warmer than 150 years ago.”

Both those things are responsible for the moderation of the acidity in 2024, since potassium salts buffer the acidity, and the breakdown of malic acid during the ripening process is temperature-dependent: the warmer it is the quicker it breaks down.

The fact is that all the most exciting 2024s in Germany are exceptions to the rule. Behind each of them is a long-term commitment to viticultural excellence and a major investment in soil management. 2024 demanded some quick decisions and determined action based on them, but the situation couldn’t be turned around by just a couple of sharp moves. Long-term soil and vine health were crucial to reaching the top in 2024.

Bottling Perfection

Before turning to this year’s German stars, I think it’s important to note that almost half of the highest-rated German wines this year are late releases from earlier vintages, primarily 2023. The quantities behind the handful of perfect 2024 wines are limited to very limited. If you add up all the 100-point 2024 vintage German wines, the total isn’t even 20,000 bottles. That’s equivalent to the annual production of one small chateau in Pomerol in Bordeaux.

These superstars of the 2024 vintage only exist because of Germany’s tradition of bottling single casks of exceptional wines separately. This used to only apply to BA and TBA dessert wines, but during the 21st century it has been extended to dry wines and Kabinetts.

Successful dessert wines are extremely rare in 2024, but light-bodied riesling Kabinett wines hit the bullseye. Although they are analytically just off-dry, they have such racy freshness the taste is often dry enough.

Few will experience the mind-blowing brilliance of the best three 2024 riesling Kabinetts from Julian Haart, because they are only available (together with three dry GGs) in a mixed six-bottle case, which are very hard to find and already pricey.

Many other extraordinary wines of this category will be much easier to obtain and far less expensive.  For example, the Ansgar Clüsserath Riesling Mosel Kabinett 2024 is a classic example of this category and it should delight Acid Heads and German Wine Freaks everywhere on Planet Wine. The global average price for this wine is around US$25 according to WineSearcher.com, and German wine prices have been remarkably stable in spite of increasing costs for things like corks and glass, plus a recent increase in the minimum wage.

If you want more power and a wonderful exotic complexity, all packed into a sleek frame, then the August Kesseler Riesling Rheingau Lorchhausen Seligmacher Kabinett Gold Cap 2024 is still well under US$50.

The dry wine highlights of the 2024 vintage are generally higher in price, particularly superstars like the amazing Kühling-Gillot Riesling Rheinhessen Rothenberg Wurzelecht GG 2024, which is maelstrom of spiciness, flint and smoke. Somehow it squares the circle of incredible mineral concentration and diamond-bright brilliance.

This was the largest production of a perfect German dry wine of the vintage, even if there are just under 2,000 bottles. And the average global price is US$245. It comes from a small parcel of vines that was planted in 1934, and these may be the oldest riesling vines in the whole region. The Rothenberg site of Nackenheim has red slate (scientific name: rotliegenden) soil, and in this parcel the color is redder than anywhere else.

Either you can admire this exclusivity, or the wine might strike you as unreachable. There is no clear logic to German wine pricing, except that German cult wines are expensive, just like other cult wines.

If you’re after something less elevated but exciting from Germany’s erratic 2024 vintage, then it’s worth noting that several subregions stood out. They are the Roter Hang of Nackenheim and Nierstein in Rheinhessen, the Rudesheimer Berg of the Rheingau and the Mittelhaardt in the Pfalz.

In 2024 the quality consistency for the pinot varieties –pinot blanc, pinot gris and pinot noir – was definitely better than for riesling, because those grape varieties were picked before the heavy rain on Sept. 26. Nearly all the riesling was picked after that date.

This brings us to the biggest German revelation of the year for me: Germany’s first perfect chardonnay. The Bernhard Huber Chardonnay Baden Schlossberg GG 2023 has mind-blowing aromas and flavors of candied citrus, toasted nuts and flint, plus an overwhelming chalky minerality. I might just be amazed!

– Stuart Pigott, Senior Editor

The list of wines below is comprised of bottles tasted and rated by the JamesSuckling.com tasting team. They include many latest releases not yet available on the market, but which will be available soon. 

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