Legends of the Rheingau, Plus Bordeaux’s 2021: Weekly Tasting Report (Dec 6-12)

We rated 595 wines this past week from six countries as we wind down our tastings for 2023, which will see the JamesSuckling.com team hitting a new record high of about 40,000 wines tasted. Senior Editor Stuart Pigott was in the Rheingau region of Germany, where he had one of the most exciting tastings he can remember ever experiencing. Achim von Oetinger belongs to a new group of totally perfectionist German winemakers who accept no compromise of any kind, and since Lutz Loosen became his right hand man in 2019 they have been the region’s dynamic duo.

There was a fireworks display of great wines at the von Oetinger winery, but one wine in particular overwhelmed more than any other – the perfect von Oetinger Riesling Rheingau Am Hoen Reyn Trocken (Auction Wine) 2020. It left Stuart struggling to find words to describe how, in spite of its gigantic structure, it has spot-on balance and a totally mind-blowing finish. This giant of a wine will be sold through the auction of the Rheingau VDP producers association in March of next year.

Von Oetinger’s recently bottled dry riesling GGs from the 2022 vintage also impressed. The spectacular von Oetinger Riesling Rheingau Marcobrunn GG 2022 fully lives up to the legend of this vineyard site, and it was hard to imagine how a dry white wine could be more concentrated than this. Yet it is a great masterpiece of precision with a sensual silky texture. But like most of von Oetinger’s single-vineyard dry wines, it is very limited production.

The winery produced just 666 bottles of this wine. The first reason for that is the small size of the vineyard parcel it came from from – just 0.14 hectare – and the second is the low yield of just 35 hectoliters per hectare. This only tells half the story though, because von Oetinger and Loosen are fanatics for precision vineyard management, doing a great deal of the work by hand. A rigorous selection of the grapes at harvest is followed by manual destemming to give a mass of individual berries. Most German winemakers shake their heads in disbelief when they hear that last item, because it is extremely time-consuming and machines do this so quickly.

The grapes are macerated on the skins for between 12 hours and three days, then pressed, but some whole berries go into the fermentation tank whole. After wild fermentation the wines sit on the lees for up to a year. That part is a hands-off process and the wines are only pumped and filtered at bottling. All of this results in dry rieslings with amazing concentration, precision and finesse. In 2022 alcohol levels are moderate, typically around 12 percent, so these are not “big wines” in the usual sense.

And rather than make one high-end dry riesling in a large volume, von Oetinger is uncompromising about separating small and tiny lots to preserve their incredible individuality. That’s something he has in common with other members of this new group of perfectionist German winemakers, people like Eva Fricke in the Rheingau and Julian Haart in the Mosel. Of course, you have to hunt down these wines and beg for every bottle you buy, but prices are modest for the stratospheric quality. The best of the non-GG wines are cheap, so read the notes below to find the best deals.

BORDEAUX 2021: FRESHNESS AND BALANCE

The 237 Bordeaux wines we rated for this report from the 2021 vintage are not going to excite you, although it should be noted that they are all outstanding wines – 90 points or more. It was almost a miracle that winemakers could make such high-quality wines considering all the drama in the vineyards during the grape-growing season.

Just about everything that could be wrong in viticulture happened, including spring frosts, mildew, botrytis, lots of rain, a shortage of sunlight and mild temperatures during key months in the summer. The few moments of sunshine in August, September and October ripened the grapes enough to make pretty wines, if winemakers were extremely selective in their vineyards and soft in their winemaking. Some had to chaptalize to increase alcohol in their wines.

The wines we have tasted so far this year from the vintage in our office in Hong Kong – more than 700 – show a freshness and balance with attractive and subtle character. Tannins are refined and straightforward. A few wines are classic in quality and have more of everything, highlighting the magic of superior terroirs with better drainage and warmer sites as well as superior winemaking. Take a look at the 95 to 96 points wines here. They are worth buying at reduced prices or in restaurants because they are for early drinking.

Here is a quote from James’ first report on the vintage from barrel in May 2022: “You can’t say that it is a bad year,” Michel Rolland said in his laboratory, where we tasted about 180 wines. Rolland and his team consult for hundreds of wineries and producers in Bordeaux as well as dozens in the world. “There are some really good wines, but after 2018, 2019 and 2020, it’s not easy. It was complicated. It was not a bad year. Everyone has their opinion. There are some beautiful wines. They are easy wines to taste.”

The three dozen or so 2019 Brunello di Montalcino James tasted this week in James Suckling Wine Central were in a different league. The vintage made the best Brunellos since 2016 and they show an underlying elegance with serious structure. The vintage is clearly superior to the fresh and drinkable 2018, which lacked structure. One feature James likes about the vintage is that single-vineyard Brunellos are very distinctive, showing their provenance and character.  Check out the single-vineyard 2019 Brunellos from Corte Pavone, Pieve Santa Restituta and Sesta di Sopra in this report.

There are also just over 230 wines from California, mostly a mix of reds from 2021 and 2020. The majority of the 2021s are outstanding quality, as expected, due to the excellent quality of the grapes from the small harvest.

The 2020s were not at the normal level due to the fire during the growing season, where winemakers had to pick earlier or they had to treat their wines because of smoke taint. Nonetheless, some wineries below made some impressive 2020s, such as Beaulieu Vineyard, whose winemaker Trevor Durling said "they had very nice stuff" at the beginning of the harvest and before the second fire. “We made 60 percent less than normal in 2020,” he added.

A PINOTESQUE POSE

Some of the most consistently delicious wines in the world come from Cotes du Rhone, the broad swathe of vineyards that flank the Rhone from the north to the south. While the northern sector is dominated by noble, communal appellations such as Cote-Rotie, the south opens into a veritable spread of terracotta, sunshine and allusions of plenty. Here, grenache dominates over the syrah of the north and Mont Ventoux looms at the edge of every vista as vineyards roll across limestone, clay, a smattering of sandstone and galets, the alluvial white pudding stones left in the wake of the Rhone’s freer flowing past.

In these parts, Chateauneuf du Pape, France oldest appellation, is the motherlode. Yet in recent times, it has been rivaled by Gigondas, a far more picturesque town set in elevated relief against the chiffon-like trellis of the Dentelles de Montmirail, the jagged hilltops behind. In cooler years such as 2020 and the wetter, more challenging 2021, Vacqueyras, too, can throw down the gauntlet, equaling the best wines of its more illustrious neighbors. Then there are satellite appellations of Sablet, Séguret, Cairanne, Beaumes de Venise, Rasteau and others, each responsible for a bevy of good producers and richly flavored, spicy grenache-centric wines.

Senior Editor Ned Goodwin MW tasted some delicious wines over the past week from the organic producer Domaine la Roubine, which has holdings in Gigondas, Vacqueyras and Sablet. Eric Ughetto, Domaine la Roubine's winemaker, was a fireman in Paris before turning his attention to the land, and his kit is invariably delicious, striking a pinotesque pose that is more common with contemporary Spanish and Australian iterations of grenache than those from the southern Rhone.

Ughetto suggested that vineyards exposed to the wind in 2021 were more likely to dry out, mitigating the fungal disease pressures of the vintage while maximizing the capacity for optimal ripeness – and it is grenache from such vintages that has the proclivity for more diaphanous textures and accents of redder fruits, over black. Such is the case with Domaine la Roubine’s stellar 2021 Vacqueyras, which is compact, lithe and marked by white pepper, as well as with its taut, demur Gigondas 2022, which is a wine that needs time to unfurl.

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