Cool Quaffs in the Rheingau, Plus Valpolicella’s Appassimento Edge

After his Burgundy tasting marathon, Senior Editor Stuart Pigott finally turned his attention to his home territory in Germany, where one of his first stops was at the August Kesseler winery in the western end of the Rheingau region. Kesseler gave Stuart a very concise description of the  white wines of the 2024 vintage: “This cool vintage invites you to quaff at the highest level!“

But an important exception to how easygoing the vintage was could be found in Kesseler’s range of 2024 wines: the deeply structured and incredibly precise August Kesseler Riesling Rheingau Berg Roseneck GG 2024, with its very long, compact finish. This is a long-term wine that won’t be released until next year.

Similarly amazing was the off-dry August Kesseler Riesling Rheingau Lorchhausen Seligmacher Kabinett Gold Cap 2024, which welcomes you to the special heaven reserved for passion fruit, mangosteen and white tropical flowers. It has a dangerously refreshing and dry finish.

For Theresa Breuer of the Georg Breuer winery in Rudesheim, 2024 is a breathtaking vintage. For Stuart this is logical, because the  vineyards of the Rudesheimer Berg always shone in wet years like 2024. Both 2021 and 2008 are also excellent examples of this phenomenon.

The Georg Breuer Riesling Rheingau Berg Schlossberg 2024 is a miraculous wine that forced Stuart to ask himself how a dry white can ripple with exotic fruit aromas, be packed with slaty character yet feel almost weightless on the palate?

It faces tough internal competition in the form of the Georg Breuer Riesling Rheingau Berg Rottland 2024, another de facto GG. It has giant minerality on the compact, medium-bodied palate, then incredible crystalline intensity at the finish.

These are highly sought-after wines with three-figure prices. Friendlier on the pocketbook is the Georg Breuer Riesling Rheingau Terra Montosa 2024, a cuvee of wines from this producer's top sites, also offers radical minerality with terrific energy and clarity. There are 32,000 bottles of it, so it will be easier to find.

“I was very happy, because this was the first vintage with a new vineyard manager and cellar master,” Breuer said of '24.

Because of late release dates for some wines, a number of Rheingau wineries shone with top bottlings from earlier vintages, notably the legendary Schloss Johannisberg.

There are 20,000 bottles of the breathtaking Schloss Johannisberg Riesling Rheingau Silberlack GG 2023, a great masterpiece of flint and mirabelle plum with enormous power and precision. It spent 20 months on the lees in mostly well-used oak casks.

The Schloss Johannisberg Riesling Rheingau Goldlack Trocken 2022 got an extra year in barrel, down in the ancient Bibliotheca Subterranea cellar at the historic winery. This and just 12.5 percent alcohol give it a vitality that’s totally exceptional for this hot and dry vintage. The super-dense apricot, apricot skin and mirabelle plum aromas are off the scale. It has decades of aging potential.

Launched with the 2018 vintage, Monte Vacano is the top single-vineyard dry riesling from Robert Weil, and the forthcoming release is a perfect expression of dry Rheingau riesling. The Robert Weil Riesling Rheingau Monte Vacano Trocken 2023 hits you in one great wave, a cornucopia of wet-stone, salty and herbal flavors cascading over you. It was wild-fermented and matured on the full lees in large neutral oak for almost two years. 

The dry single-vineyard 2024 riesling wines at Robert Weil are also an impressive group, but in the range of very limited-production dessert wines there’s a great shining star: the Robert Weil Riesling Rheingau Kiedrich Turmberg Auslese 2024 is packed with white and yellow peach aromas, and also has extraordinary elegance and finesse.

It’s a little-known fact that there are now just shy of 2,000 hectares of sauvignon blanc planted in Germany. With the 2023 vintage, winemaker Gesine Roll of the Weedenborn winery in the Rheinhessen has pushed the bar for this grape in Germany another, decisive notch higher.

Her Weedenborn Sauvignon Blanc Rheinhessen Réserve Trocken 2023 is a masterpiece of flint, pink- and yellow-grapefruit intensity. There’s gigantic energy on the compact and very concentrated medium-bodied palate. It can stand next to the best sauvignons that the Loire or anywhere else on Planet Wine have to offer.

Valpolicella's Appassimento Edge

From Valtellina to Valpolicella, the use of appassimento – the traditional grape-drying process – seems less outdated than in need of a more critical re-evaluation. One of the most compelling interpretations in recent tastings comes from Marco Dal Forno.

Dal Forno, one of the most respected producers in the broader Valpolicella area, will not be releasing a new Amarone this year, although it is bringing back an older vintage – 2011 – which is perhaps not the purest expression of the Amarone style but is a wine of haunting complexity and infinite nuance nonetheless.

But the Dal Forno wine that made the strongest impressions during Senior Editor Aldo Fiordelli’s tastings over the past week was their Valpolicella Superiore Monte Lodoletta 2019. Though technically not an Amarone, the wine undergoes appassimento and partial aging in new oak. And it’s here that the critical distinction emerges.

Rather than the customary 100 days of drying process, now often viewed as excessive even for Amarone, the grapes for this Valpolicella Superiore rest on drying racks for just 25 days. Concentrated, yes – but with equilibrium.

The result is a wine of depth, structure and richness, yet it carries a poignant sense of grace. Aromas layer ripe black fruit and sweet spice, but it’s the unexpected lightness on the palate that brings refinement to this powerful expression.

Zenato is another Valpolicella whose Amarones stood out in Aldo’s tastings. Zenato’s setting in the classic zone – higher in altitude, limestone-rich and cooler in climate – helps set its wines apart, drawing out the elegance of corvina even within the extracted frame of Amarone.

The Zenato Amarone della Valpolicella Archivio Storico 2013 impressed with its depth and evolution, showing notes of truffle, bitter chocolate and tamarind – proof of the wine’s natural affinity for long aging. Meanwhile, the Zenato Amarone della Valpolicella Classico Sergio Zenato Riserva 2019 offers a different kind of promise: dense and spicy yet vibrant on the finish, it’s a wine poised for both immediate appeal and long-term intrigue.

When it comes to red wines in the Veneto, it’s worth looking beyond the usual appellations for something more unexpected – less traditional, yet no less engaging. The Euganean Hills, Asolo Montello, the Colli Berici and other zones are turning increasingly to red varieties with fresh intent.

Take the Inama Carmenere Colli Berici Oratorio di San Lorenzo Riserva 2021, for instance. Bursting with ripe fruit and coffee grounds, it’s full-bodied, velvety and deeply comforting – the kind of plush texture typical of the variety. But there’s also a spark of energy on the finish, just enough to keep things alive. It’s the kind of tension and identity these wines need today to stay relevant in a crowded marketplace.

Parsing Monterey and Santa Cruz 

Looking out over the 50-acre expanse of Rosella’s Vineyard, it became clear to staff writer and taster Brian Freedman why so many top pinot noir producers in the Santa Lucia Highlands of California purchase fruit from the iconic site.

“You’ll see as you go around our vineyards, they have all these tags: We sell to 20 wineries and they all have their own section, and they get the same section every year,” explained Gary Franscioni, who owns the property with his wife, Rosella. “And there's different clones in the property, like eight clones, so they do harvest at different times. Normally, people get the bottom, middle and top, so it gives a variety of stuff.”

For all that variety, however, the personality of the vineyard tends to shine through with impressive clarity, especially when the wind kicks in, which is critical to the unique character of the wines. “This is our wind,” Franscioni said when it blew through during Brian’s visit. “This is what we love.”

Monterey County and the Santa Cruz Mountains are often spoken of in similar contexts. Yet for all that they have in common – they are among the defining regions of California’s Central Coast; both excel with pinot noir and chardonnay in addition to a wide range of other varieties; and the influence of water plays a critical role in each – they are decidedly different regions.

Earlier this month, Brian spent time tasting and speaking with key winemakers and grape growers throughout both regions. After the trip, he continued reviewing reds and whites in his home office. With more than 200 wines tasted so far, including a number of them by other members of the JamesSuckling.com team earlier this year, the exceptional character and breadth of wines from both has been clear throughout.

Monterey County, about a two-hour drive south of San Francisco, is massive: At approximately 53,000 acres planted, it’s among the biggest quality wine-growing regions in California. As such, there’s a wide range of terroirs and microclimates that impact the county, depending on where your focus is. It’s no surprise, then, that more than 50 different grape varieties are grown there, from the usual suspects (cabernet sauvignon, syrah, pinot noir and chardonnay) to less-familiar ones (valdiguie, sangiovese and more), depending on where in Monterey they’re planted.

In the Santa Lucia Highlands, for example, it’s pinot noir and chardonnay that tend to get the lion’s share of attention, and no wonder: fog-shrouded mornings often turn to warm afternoons that become notably windy before cooler evenings, which is perfect for ripening those two varieties while also maintaining their critical acidity.

Adam Lee, the founder of Siduri, which produced a number of high-scoring wines reviewed in this report, also stressed the importance of history there. “One of the things I always thought about San Lucia Highlands is that it’s got everything that people say they want,” he explained. “The families, the long-term family history, the farming … it's got every single thing that you would want.”

Because of the long history of grape-growing in Monterey County, a deep understanding of how to farm specific vineyards has come into sharp focus. This allows producers to express the small or major differences between them with clarity and consistency. Wine from the iconic Garys’ Vineyard, for example, is totally different from Rosella’s Vineyard, which diverges in important ways from Soberanes or Sierra Mar. Side-by-side tastings from those four vineyards, in fact, produced some of the most eye-opening comparisons of the report. Look for Roar, Siduri, Patz & Hall, Bernardus and Testarossa for excellent examples.

The Santa Cruz Mountains, closer to San Francisco, contain a fascinating patchwork of vineyards planted on the mountain flanks and hillsides that define much of the region. The ruggedly varied terrain, the angle of any particular vineyard to the sun and the time of day that the fog rolls in over lower-lying dips in the surrounding hills are all factors in not only how the wines express themselves but also what grapes can be planted in the first place. The fact that world-class pinot and chardonnay are successfully produced in the same region – and often from vineyards that aren’t all that far from one another – as outstanding syrah, grenache, mourvedre, cabernet sauvignon and more is a testament to the richly varied nature of the region.

And producers are willing to experiment and pivot as necessary. Blake Yarger, the winemaker for Big Basin Vineyards, explained that he and his team recently decided to no longer grow roussanne because it was ripening too late if adequately at all, and grafted over to chenin blanc. That cool weather, however, has proven to be perfect for other Rhone varieties. Their 2022 syrah from the Rattlesnake Vineyard is a spicy, peppery gem; their mourvedre also sings. Other standout Santa Cruz Mountains wines for the report were produced by Neely, Mount Eden Vineyards, Samuel Louis Smith, Thomas Fogarty and Kathryn Kennedy, whose 2010 estate cabernet is still going strong.

As is the case in so much of the wine world, trend lines in both Monterey County and the Santa Cruz Mountains seem to point in the direction of greater transparency, or producing wines that, even in warmer vintages like 2022, maintain a sense of focus and purity alongside their ripeness. That allows for fresher wines in hot vintages and terrifically expressive ones in more even years like the excellent 2023.

Whether you’re looking for detailed, idiosyncratic expressions of pinot noir and chardonnay, the often savory and spicy character of cooler-climate syrah or mourvedre, brisk, saline sauvignon blanc or something else entirely, both Monterey County and the Santa Cruz Mountains offer an impressive range of options, as the hundreds of wines in this report show.

– Stuart Pigott, Aldo Fiordelli and Brian Freedman 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.

Note: You can sort the wines below by country, vintage, score and alphabetically by winery name. You can also search for specific wines in the search bar.