Magnificence From the Mosel, Plus Handling the Heat in Paso Robles: Weekly Tasting Report (Aug 28-Sept 3)

The JamesSuckling.com tasting team rated 770 wines over the past week from eight countries, with Senior Editor Stuart Pigott leading the charge by tapping into a slew of 2023 Mosel rieslings, both in the region and at the official press presentation of the dry, single-vineyard GG wines in Wiesbaden. His first impression is that this is a fantastic vintage, as good as 2019 but more elegant and subtle – characteristics that are almost ideally allied with the personality of the area.

No wine expresses this more beautifully than the Peter Lauer Riesling Mosel Schonfels GG No. 11 2023, with its haunting nose of white peaches and white flowers. It is incredibly concentrated and graceful, and is accompanied by an almost endless finish with profound mineral details.

What makes this achievement even more impressive is that the Schonfels was a forgotten top site that Florian Lauer rediscovered after taking over the family winery in 2005. Stuart has never tasted a comparable dry wine from the Saar subregion of the Mosel, although in 2023 Saar producers such as Nik Weis, Van Volxem and Zilliken also made some brilliant dry wines, which Stuart will report on later this year.

The Carl Loewen Riesling Mosel 1896 (Gray Label) 2023 is no less astonishing, but more forthrightly powerful, as we expect from the Middle Mosel subregion. It proves that great density and delicacy can co-exist. Somehow it manages to be overwhelming yet have a seemingly timeless quality.

Christopher Loewen first produced this wine in 2012 for a piece of research  he was doing while studying at the Geisenheim Wine University. It is vinified just like Mosel wines were in 1896, when the vines he uses were planted, including pressing in a period basket press and wild fermentation in a thousand-liter Fuder neutral oak barrel. This wine remains an exception to the super-elegant rule at Carl Loewen, but the other wines are conventional Mosel rieslings in the best sense of those words.

Another great masterpiece Stuart found is also a complete exception to the rules. Julian Haart has been producing amazing hand-crafted Mosel wines (both dry and sweet) under his own name since 2010, and several years ago he swapped some vineyards with Klaus Peter Keller of the legendary Keller winery in Rheinhessen, where Julian Haart trained. Keller got the tiny Schubertslay monopole site in the Mosel and Julian Haart got the vines from which he produced his totally breathtaking Julian Haart Riesling Rheinhessen Am Schwarzen Herrgott 2023. Haart is also at a loss to explain this lightning strike from a clear blue sky, but wine perfection is not something you can use an AI program to achieve and there never was a recipe for it, either!

Although the grapes for it grew at the southern tip of the Rheinhessen region, it was vinified in Haart’s cellar in Piesport in the Mosel, and many of the Mosel wines it shared that space with also turned out spectacularly well, including two Kabinett offerings – the Julian Haart Riesling Mosel Ohligsberg Kabinett (White Label) 2023 and Julian Haart Riesling Mosel Ohligsberg Kabinett Wurzelecht 2023. The former is diamond-bright and incredibly focused, while the latter is incredibly wild with great herbal intensity and an uncompromising minimality. They both come from parcels in the Ohligsberg vineyard site, the first from 100-year-old vines and the Wurzelecht from 120-year-old vines, all ungrafted. Both are extremely limited production, a normal situation at this winery.

Stefan Steinmetz of the Gunther Steinmetz winery in Brauneberg is another quality fanatic in the Mosel, and although several of his top wines of the 2023 vintage were still fermenting when Stuart tasted there, they were still astonishingly deep and expressive. None is more extraordinary than the Günther Steinmetz Riesling Mosel Piesporter Treppchen Von Den Terrassen 2023. It has a gigantic stature for the wines of this region, and is the essence of slate and a miracle of finesse for its scale. This is another extremely limited-production wine, but scroll down to the tasting notes and you’ll find other great wines from this producer that will be easier to find.

Selbach-Oster in Zeltingen is one of the most widely distributed of the leading Mosel producers, and it has been for a long time. You might think that there would therefore be no surprises here. However, Stuart has been stunned over the past few years by the dry rieslings made by father and son team Johannes and Sebastian Selbach. For Stuart, the 2023 single-vineyard GG wines are the best so far, but it was another wine that is neither properly dry nor really sweet that blew his mind. The breathtaking mineral freshness lifts the imposing stature of the Selbach-Oster Riesling Mosel Schmitt 2023 and takes you to a place of floating peace. Call it riesling nirvana if you like. It comes from a single parcel of vines in the Schlossberg site of Zeltingen.

Like many of their colleagues, the Selbachs are still a bit stunned by the wines they made in 2023. As Johannes said: “The harvest was extremely taxing because of all the rot we had remove, and it was only some months later that we tasted the cellar and suddenly realized what a great vintage we had!”

HANDLING THE HEAT IN PASO ROBLES

Associate editor Ryan Montgomery was in Paso Robles, California, over the past week, tasting and discussing the release of 2023 whites along with the 2022 and 2021 reds, with some intriguing findings.

According to producers and winemakers he talked with, the 2022 vintage presented significant challenges, sandwiched between the refined and elegant 2021 and 2023 vintages. The harvest period in August saw 10 consecutive days of temperatures exceeding 105 degrees Fahrenheit (40.5 Celsius), a scenario many Paso Robles winemakers described as one of the most difficult in recent memory. “I had to recalibrate my expectations for certain sites and varieties, focusing instead on vineyards that could withstand the heat and maintain freshness,” said Stefan Asseo of L'Aventure.

Despite the tough conditions in 2022, the diversity and resilience of experienced professionals like viticulturist Hilary Graves and winemaker Peter Turrone of Booker Wines yielded surprising results. The Booker Paso Robles Vertigo 2022, a blend of 45 percent syrah, 27 percent mourvedre, 10 percent grenache, 10 percent tannat, 7 percent petit sirah, and 1 percent viognier (with 30 percent whole bunch), impressed Ryan with its deep, brooding flavors of blackcurrant, dark chocolate and tobacco leaf, complemented by firm tannins and bright acidity.

Freshness and balance is typically not associated with vintages like 2022, but Jason Haas of Tablas Creek said his team found a way to capture it, producing a full-bodied yet vibrant and refined Tablas Creek Vineyard Paso Robles Adelaida District Esprit de Tablas 2022, which displays silky smooth tannins and bright acidity, achieved through a harmonious and balanced blend of 40 percent mourvedre, 28 percent grenache, 22 percent syrah, 4 percent vaccarese, 3 percent counoise, and 3 percent cinsault.

Similarly, Daniel Daou and Jose Alberto Santos of Patrimony, exemplify this balance with their Patrimony Paso Robles Adelaida District Caves des Lions 2022. Their Bordeaux-style blend of 65 percent cabernet sauvignon and 35 percent cabernet franc maintains its varietal typicity and freshness, thanks in part to their vineyard's 2,200 feet elevation, located only 14 miles of the Pacific Ocean, helping buffer the extreme conditions endured.

And from the 2023 vintage, Asseo’s L'Aventure Paso Robles Willow Creek District White 2023 is mineral-driven with a generous texture and tight acidity that delivers a wonderfully complex and intriguing wine that will age for many years to come.

A MILESTONE FOR KNAPPSTEIN

2024 marks the 50th anniversary of South Australian winery Knappstein, and they have bottled two new cuvees to be released later this year to celebrate the milestone. Associate Editor Claire Nesbitt tasted both, along with Knappstein's other latest releases, with Knappstein senior winemaker Michael Kane in our Hong Kong tasting office. The Knappstein Shiraz 1878 Transcendence 2021, from a cooler vintage in the Clare Valley, is seductive and velvety, with creamy tannins and excellent concentration at only 13.5 percent alcohol. The Knappstein Riesling 1878 Transcendence 2024, meanwhile, is a pure, cool white showing fresh citrus, floral and chalk aromas, made from a selection of the estate’s riesling parcels. It’s restrained and tense and will reward cellaring. Claire also liked their Ackland Vineyard Riesling 2024, which is a consistently mineral, slatey and vibrant bottling that offers both fantastic value and aging potential.

Standouts from our South Africa tastings this week included the latest releases from Boekenhoutskloof winery, based in Franschhoek. South Africa is known for its old bush-vine chenin blancs; lesser-known (and less in fashion) are its old semillon bush vines. The Boekenhoutskloof Semillon Franschhoek 2022 is a textural and creamy white using semillon grapes sourced from low-yielding bush vines planted in 1942, 1936 and 1902, and it’s impressively concentrated, full of stone, citrus and tropical fruit aromas, alongside spice and almond notes.

Boekenhoutskloof also owns a hilltop estate in the Swartland called Porseleinberg, and its 2022 release from the property is a very fresh, savory and even herbal expression of syrah that shows green-olive, rosemary and iron aromas. It’s the lowest-alcohol Porseleinberg that winemaker Callie Louw has ever bottled, but paradoxically is from a very hot vintage that saw extreme heat stall the development of the grapes, resulting in a late harvest. So while you might expect a bigger wine, it’s more elegant and fresher than past vintages. Check out the rest of the range from Boekenhoutskloof in the tasting notes below, including their cabernet sauvignons from Stellenbosch and Franshhoek.

– Stuart Pigott, Ryan Montgomery and Claire Nesbitt 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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