A Supernova Kabinett and Crittenden’s Savagnin Wonders: Weekly Tasting Report (Aug 2-8)

Senior Editor Stuart Pigott made the first of three trips to the Mosel over the past week to taste the young 2022 vintage wines and was amazed by what he found: many leading winemakers stunned by their own wines.

The summer of 2022 was hot and arid, causing the vines to shut down and stopping photosynthesis. Then rain came and the vines jerked out of their slumbers to continue the ripening process.

“Like everyone else, we feared a vintage of rich and weighty wines like the 2018s,” said Sofia Thanisch of the legendary Wwe Dr. H. Thanisch (Thanisch Erben) winery in Bernkastel-Kues. “It is a wonder how filigree and elegant the wines have turned out!“ This description aptly applied to all the wines she and her daughter Christina made in the 2022 vintage, a pristine collection.

However, producers also described plots of young vines that suffered drought stress, so that the grapes could not be used. Anyone who put fruit like that in the press ended up with tannic and/or bitter wines.

The positive side of the vintage is most prominently on show in the Kabinett category of Mosel riesling, which is known for its low alcohol content, delicacy and crispness. There were many stars in this category and one mighty supernova, the Willi Schaefer Riesling Mosel Graacher Domprobst Kabinett (Auction Wine) 2022, which married the classic characteristics of Kabinett with truly phenomenal concentration.

There was just one Fuder barrel of this wine, or just over 1,300 bottles, but there’s a lot more of the regular bottling of this wine, the Willi Schaefer Riesling Mosel Graacher Domprobst Kabinett. “We are really delighted how the Kabinett wines turned out in 2022," winemaker Christoph Schaefer said.

Single Fuder, or best barrel, bottlings have a long tradition in the Mosel going back to at least the second half of the 19th century. It is the exact opposite of the Bordeaux tradition of making just a couple of wines (first and second) in each vintage with large bottlings.

This really helps the region’s top winemakers reach the pinnacle of quality – that is, over 95 points, particularly in complicated vintages like 2022. The other secret to the success of winemakers like Schaefer is precision viticulture and very strict selection of the grapes, They reject everything from weak plots of vines to single berries that don’t make the grade.

This combination was also the story behind the best of the dry wines of the vintage. None was more extraordinary than the Günther Steinmetz Riesling Mosel Neumagener Rosengärtchen Von den Terrassen 2022, which has staggering intensity but no less amazing refinement.

In general this vintage is immediately appealing, which is quite a contrast to the firmness of the 2021s at this  stage. The charming 2020s (another hot and dry summer) are much closer in type to the 2022s, but there is more tension and energy in the 2022s than the 2020s.

There are some exceptions to the fruity and friendly general personality of the new vintage, though. For example, the 2022s from Carl Loewen are extremely racy and tightly structured. The most exciting of these wines was the Carl Loewen Riesling Mosel Maxiin Herrenberg GG 2022 – a riesling maelstrom of incredible mineral energy.

Meanwhile, Senior Editor Zekun Shuai from China has joined James and Associate Editor Andrii Stetsuik in our office in Tuscany, and they are tasting up a storm reviewing mostly Tuscan wines and moving into Sicily as well as other areas. There are number of wines from top producers in the coast of Tuscany featured in this report, such as Poggio al Tesoro, Podere Sapaio and Bulichella. Right at the top of the Italian ratings are Poggio al Tesoro's terrific Bolgheri Superiore Sondraia 2020 and Bolgheri Superiore Dedicato a Walter 2019.

Some other names to check out in the notes below include Podernuovo a Palazzone, Cavalli Tenuta Degli Dei, Tenimenti d'Alessandro, Felsina, and Tolaini.

CRITTENDEN'S SAVAGNIN WONDERS

In the mid-2000s, a stash of vine material was brought into Australia. It easily cleared the country’s notoriously stringent customs controls after the government's Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation had verified its genetic veracity as albariño, a then in-vogue cultivar from Galicia, in northwestern Spain. With its aromatic orb of stone and citrus fruits melded to a saline bite, albariño was considered an intuitive ticket to freshness in many Australian regions challenged to attain it.

In 2009, however, a visiting French ampelographer suggested that the vines were something other than albariño. The hapless Australian Wine and Brandy Corporation, today’s Wine Australia, was aghast. Wineries that had adopted the material which, by this stage, amounted to 150 hectares, were pissed off. Their bureaucratic overseers had swiped left, when they swiped right. The grape was not what it was supposed at all, but the little-known savagnin, from the Jura region in France.

What to do? The majority of adoptees ripped the stuff out. Others mitigated their losses by rendering bang-in and -out sort of styles, fermented cool in stainless steel to the tune of anodyne, interchangeable dry white table wines that could have come from anywhere.

Very few producers, however, had the courage and flight of fancy to think long term and outside of the box. Rollo Crittenden, the winemaker at Crittenden Estate in Victoria’s Mornington Peninsula, was an exception. His assistant winemaker, Matt Campbell, had experienced Vin Jaune on a trip to the Jura years before. In 2011 he decided to take a barrel of his misbegotten savagnin and leave it untopped and unsulfured. Intuitively, the flor surface yeast, or “voile” (veil) as it is known in the Jura, began to cover the wine. This facilitated a biological aging process under the aegis of the yeast, prompting kaleidoscopic complexities of cheese cloth, curry powder, salted nuts, chamomile and aldehydes, not dissimilar to Japanese radish, that the Crittenden Cri de Coeur Savagnin has become known for.

Crittenden calls the genesis of the Cri de Coeur “one of the greatest mistakes that has ever happened to us.” Tasting the 2018, I couldn’t agree more. The wine is invariably brilliant, although the 2018 feels weightier and more viscous, perhaps, than years past. It should age very well over the course of a decade to 15 years.

Crittenden also crafts a Macvin, currently the fourth iteration, or #4 as it is labeled. This is a gently fortified style that also draws on the heritage of the Jura. The wine is crafted with savagnin that is aged for four years under flor before being sweetened with savagnin juice and fortified to 17 percent. It boasts a similar flavor profile to the Cri de Coeur with an additional hint of brulee.

– James Suckling, Stuart Pigott and Ned Goodwin MW contributed reporting. 

The list of wines below is comprised of bottles tasted and rated during the past week by James Suckling and the other tasters at JamesSuckling.com. They include many latest releases not yet available on the market, but which will be available soon. Some will be included in upcoming tasting reports.

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