August 2023 Tasting Report: Germany’s Riesling Wonderland, a Spanish Renaissance and Australia’s Cri de Coeur

Germany, Spain, Italy and Australia were front and center on our tasting trail in August as we rated nearly 2,700 wines from the four countries out of the 3,199 bottles in total we tapped into during the month from 18 countries, including such outliers as Brazil, England, Poland and Romania. And it was one of our biggest months ever for 100-point wines, as we uncovered an even 10 perfect scorers – six from Germany and four from Spain.

Senior Editor Stuart Pigott covered the width and breadth of Germany as he dug into 465 wines, starting with his trip to the Mosel at the start of the month to sample the young 2022 vintage wines there. Although the year was hot and arid, winemakers in the region managed to avoid rich and weighty wines as has happened in previous hot vintages. Instead, what they got was something more filigree and elegant, especially when it came to the Kabinett category of Mosel riesling.

The star here, and one of our 10 perfect scorers, was the Willi Schaefer Riesling Mosel Graacher Domprobst Kabinett (Auction Wine) 2022, which has all the classic characteristics of Kabinett alongside truly phenomenal concentration. There was also a regular bottling of the same wine, but both shined through in a complicated vintage because of precision viticulture and very strict selection of the grapes, according to winemaker Christoph Schaefer. That combination was also the story behind one of the best dry whites of the vintage, the extraordinary Günther Steinmetz Riesling Mosel Neumagener Rosengärtchen Von den Terrassen 2022 – another 100-pointer.

Although the 2022 vintage is generally appealing in the immediate term, some of the wines got away from the fruity and friendly vibe and veered more toward racy and tightly structured. One of these was the Carl Loewen Riesling Mosel Maxiin Herrenberg GG 2022, which Stuart called “a riesling maelstrom of incredible mineral energy.”

For the Mosel Kabinett wines of 2022, the Julian Haart Riesling Mosel Ohligsberg Kabinett (White Label) 2022 is a “masterpiece” that combines incredible concentration with all the light-footedness and brilliance that this category of and Julian Haart’s fanatical commitment to quality. And the famous Maximin Grünhaus (con Schubert) winery in the Ruwer subregion of the Mosel made seven different Kabinetts in 2022, of which the Maximin Grünhaus (von Schubert) Riesling Mosel Abtsberg Kabinett 2022 is a great example.

In Germany’s Rheinhessen region, the limestone terroir of the Wonnegau subregion gave rise to some terrific wines in the 2022 vintage despite the summer drought there, with no better expression than the “breathtakingly beautiful” Keller Riesling Rheinhessen Brunnenhäuschen Abts E GG 2022 as well as the mind-blowing dry wine, the Keller Riesling Mosel Schubertslay Alte Reben GG 2022.

And from the northwestern corner of Rheinhessen, where volcanic porphyry and melaphry dominates, came the sixth of our perfect-scoring German wines for the month. The Wagner-Stempel Riesling Rheinhessen EMT (Auction Wine) 2022 turned out spectacularly well, with the old vines in this plot of riesling in the Heerkretz site giving a remarkably powerful and sensual wine for the 2022 vintage.

The husband and wife team of H.O. Spanier and Carolin Spanier-Gillot, who run both the Battenfeld-Spanier winery and Kühling-Gillot, also showed Stuart a long row of highly structured riesling GGs that all have great concentration. The brightest of the many shining stars, Stuart said, was the Kühling-Gillot Riesling Rheinhessen Rothenberg Wurzelecht GG 2022, which has essence-like stone fruit character and an almost endless finish.

From Weingut Wittman came another amazing GG – the Wittmann Riesling Rheinhessen Morstein GG 2022, whose “almost supernatural freshness of the wine after the mostly hot and dry 2022 growing season was a revelation.

FRESH AND ELEGANT FROM SPAIN

In Spain, where a new generation is driving a renaissance toward freshness, clarity and drinkability, we gave four wines perfect ratings out of the nearly 300 we tasted during the month. Two of these came from Gredos, where Daniel Landi and Fernando Garcia of Comando G are making ever fresher, more intellectual and ethereal garnachas that underscore austerity and elegance rather than richness and opulence.

Their Rumbo al Norte 2020 and Tumba del Reymoro 2021 are both from excellent vintages, with plentiful rainfall. The wines show incredible energy rarely seen anywhere else, with a prominent reductive quality, airiness and complexity – all woven into a feather-light outfit.

Meanwhile, in Alava, Rioja, Juan Carlos Lopez de Lacalle’s single-vineyard Artadi Alava Viña El Pisón 2021 shows even more minerality and refinement, with the same precision that is the hallmark of Artadi’s best wines. It’s immediately attractive and approachable in its youth, but also has great aging potential because of its exceptional balance – with its fine tannins, freshness and acidity the linchpins of its durability.

Peter Sisseck of Dominio de Pingus in Ribera del Duero made the fourth Spanish wine we gave a perfect score to. His 2021 vintage of Pingus is one of the best we know, with the convivial coexistence of depth and finesse matched with richness and freshness. It will need time to unwind, but its impeccable balance means you won’t regret opening a bottle now.

And Terroir Al Limit, an artisanal producer in Torroja, Priorat, run by Dominik Huber, is aiming for “digestible wines” rather than the “big” wines of Spain’s past, using whole-cluster fermentation and infusion winemaking to best express their winery’s terroirs and delivering nervy, fluid and fresh wines.

His Terroir Al Limit Priorat Les Manyes 2021 is the epitome of this winemaking style. It’s made with 100 percent garnacha peluda, and the wine is wild, tangy, reductive and peppery. The abundance of flavor intensity and fine tannins with a nice touch of herbal bitterness in the finish, reflecting the Mediterranean landscape, lends just the right amount of gravity and seriousness to the wine. Huber describes it as austere, honest and clean – so much so that  “you can read a newspaper through it.”

With James at his home in Italy most of the summer, we managed to pull a few corks from some of the country’s top vintners, rating more than 1,600 Italian bottles in August. Among them were the single-vineyard wines of Frank Cornellissen, which come from the various lava flows on the slopes of Mount Etna, as well as from the Benanti family in Etna, who make some of the most polished and transparent wines from the region, both reds and whites.

We also had our usual great assortment of Tuscan wines, starting with a pure cabernet franc from Orma in Bolgheri: the Aola di Orma. James was impressed with the wine’s brightness and balance as well as precise varietal character with refined structure. Poderi Boscarelli also triumphed with their minerally austere Vino Nobile di Montepulciano wines from 2019, with the wines showing particularly well at an early stage.

Particularly striking are the Vino Nobile Riserva bottling and il Nocio, a pure sangiovese from the three-hectare vineyard Vigna il Nocio, which lies at an altitude ranging from 280 to 350 meters. Boscarelli’s 2019 vintage stands out mostly for the tannin quality, which is abundant yet silty, with great purity of fruit and precision. While il Nocio seems to be a little tarrier and more vertical than the Vino Nobile di Montepulciano bottlings, there is a mineral consensus in almost every one of Boscarelli’s 2019 wines. The overall quality of Boscarelli is solid proof of why this DOCG is one of the most underrated in Tuscany, if not Italy.

Also from Tuscany, check out Poggio al Tesoro’s terrific Bolgheri Superiore Sondraia 2020 and Bolgheri Superiore Dedicato a Walter 2019.

And if you’re looking for a stunning, biodynamically made white wine from Italy, the Foradori Nosiola Vigneti delle Dolomiti Fontanasanta 2021 is it. This is a wine made from the ancient Trentino grape nosiola, and it shows an “otherworldly nose of stemmy, herbal freshness that is reminiscent of a fine mezcal,” according to Senior Editor Zekun Shuai.

James also took a side trip into Slovenia in August and met with some of the best winemakers in Brda. He found that many of their wines have the same sort of depth and intensity of the wines from neighboring Friuli, across the border in Italy, due to the excellent hillside viticulture and low-intervention winemaking.

Alexis Movia of Movia Wines is one of the local producers making consistently unique wines from a variety of grapes, including pinot grigio, sauvignon blanc and ribolla. His Movia Pinot Grigio Goriška Brda Sivi Ambra 2022, for example, is really fresh on the palate and full of red berries, red cherries, herbs and stones. Another producer to check out is Simcic. They made a merlot that is just like a classic Pomerol, with a focus and strength showing black olives, mineral, violets and dark berries.

AUSTRALIA'S CRI DE COEUR

Senior Editor Ned Goodwin MW was busy sampling from a few Australian wine regions during August, starting in Victoria, where he took a deep dive into the savagnin wines of Crittenden Estate in the Mornington Peninsula with winemaker Rollo Crittenden.

Crittenden’s Cri de Coeur savagnin came about wholly by accident, when in 2011 the winery took a barrel of misbegotten savagnin and left it untopped and unsulfured, resulting in a flor surface yeast that facilitated a biological aging process, resulting in complexities of cheese cloth, curry powder, salted nuts, chamomile and aldehydes, not dissimilar to Japanese radish.

Now, Crittenden calls the genesis of the Cri de Coeur “one of the greatest mistakes that has ever happened to us,” and Ned said that he could not agree more after tasting their 2018 Cri de Coeur, which he called “invariably brilliant,” adding that he expects it to age very well over the course of a decade to 15 years.

Another of Crittenden’s savagnin-crafted wines is the Macvin, currently in its fourth iteration, or #4 as it is labeled. It boasts a similar flavor profile to the Cri de Coeur with an additional hint of brulee.

In McLaren Vale, Ned tapped into some wines from one of the leading grenache producers of the region, Thistledown, which held a formative tasting of each vintage produced to date of its top cuvees, Sands of Time and This Charming Man, from 2018 to 2022. Sands of Time, from a prized vineyard in Blewitt Springs on pure Maslin sand dotted with ironstone and underlain by clay, “boasts a succulent pinoté, pixelated freshness and a gritty succulence, while This Charming Man is sourced from the Smart Vineyard in Clarendon and “boasts a ferrous burl and exotic perfumes – a confluence somewhere between the tannic spindle of Barbaresco and the aromatic levity of Chambolle,” according to Ned.

Ned also found some great value McLaren Vale wines, in other words those that have genuineness, poise and effortless drinkability. “Real value is defined by wines that we can drink every day, with a price that reflects those qualities, rather than a silly heavy bottle, marketing campaign or notions of prestige,” Ned said.

Ned pointed to a few delicious examples from the small producer Saltfleet as hitting all the value buttons. “These wines have soul: savory fruit, finessed tannins, juicy acidity and mellifluous drinkability due to a graceful poise. The grenache and sangiovese are particularly striking,” Ned said.

And from Western Australia, Associate Editor Claire Nesbitt found a couple of standout Margaret River chardonnays from 2022. One was the barrel-fermented, elegant and vibrant Driftwood Chardonnay Margaret River Single Site 2022, and the other, the tangy Dormilona Chardonnay Margaret River Clayface 2022, was made in amphora and has a delicious honey-like minerality.

We also tasted a couple Greek wines in August that we liked, including the Domaine Zafeirakis Limniona Tyrnavos 2021, a fresh red from the northern region of Thessaly that is deliciously zesty and salty, and the Alpha Estate Malagouzia Florina Single Block Gkremi 2022, an excellent expression of the fragrant white grape that shows typical notes of flowers, white tea and exotic fruit.

– Vince Morkri, Managing Editor

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