Napa 2022 Keeps On Giving, Plus Burgundy in the Rheinhessen: Weekly Tasting Report

We rated more than 400 wines over the past week, with Executive Editor Jim Gordon continuing to find outstanding Napa Valley reds from the challenging 2022 vintage, including exceptional examples from Grace Family Vineyards and Rudd Estate. These continue to convince us that good grape-growing practices and skillful winemaking produced dozens if not hundreds of totally enjoyable cabernet sauvignons and other wines from a harvest season plagued by record-breaking heat.

Let’s start with Grace Family, which many people associate with the  large, graceful Victorian house perched above a sloping vineyard along Highway 29 north of St. Helena. When Jim tasted the new 2022 reds at this property with owner Kathryn Green and winemaker Helen Keplinger, he learned that the winery actually owns two vineyards in the St. Helena appellation and now makes three wines from them. Two blocks totaling three acres grow at the Victorian, while another separate, small estate contains five acres of vines called Cornelius Grove.

For the last two vintages, the Cornelius Grove wines have earned slightly higher ratings from our tasting team, which is a high bar to clear given that Grace Family is perhaps the original cult cabernet from Napa Valley. The Grace Family Vineyards Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley St. Helena Cornelius Grove 2022 is brilliant, balanced and gorgeous, emphasizing red fruits and mineral, iron-like flavors.

The original Grace Family Vineyards Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley from 2022 is a touch more lush and resembles creme de cassis in flavor. The third cabernet sauvignon from Grace Family is the Reliquus 2022. It is blended from both vineyards, sports a different label design and has a price tag about one-third the cost of the other two.

In Napa Valley’s Oakville district, Rudd Estate’s four offerings of 2022 reds are further proof of the 2022 miracle, with the Mt. Veeder and Estate bottlings the most impressive of these cabernet-based wines. Rudd’s most eye-opening new release, however, is a white – the Rudd Sauvignon Blanc Napa Valley Mount Veeder 2023, which is dazzling, tightly wound and mouthwatering.

Jim also tasted at Tor Wines, where founder Tor Kenward and winemaker Jeff Ames brought out their 2023 whites and one red in bottle, as well as eight other barrel samples of 2023 reds to gauge how they are shaping up before bottling. The only 2023 red that is ready for sale is the Tor Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley Oakville 2023, which at 1,000 cases is also their largest production. It is an elegant, well-balanced and structured wine that expands in flavor as you sip. We’ll taste the others again when bottled but right now they seem right up there at the top of the heap for their AVAs.

The two Tor chardonnays from the Napa side of the Carneros AVA are ready to rock, however, scoring among our highest this year for Napa whites. We ever so slightly preferred the Tor Chardonnay Napa Valley Carneros Hyde Vineyard Cuvée Susan 2023 over the Carneros Chardonnay Beresini Vineyard Torchiana 2023. The former shows the famous, ethereal yet rich concentration of Hyde, and the latter offers wonderful creaminess along with freshness and linearity.

In the neighboring state of Oregon, the Morgen Long winery is a recent discovery for us. Unlike its neighbors in the Willamette Valley who make pinot noir, it exclusively produces chardonnay, sourcing its fruit from across the Eola-Amit Hills AVA – a cool, windy area to the south of the valley.

Owner-winemaker Seth Morgen Long produced a number of standouts from the 2022 vintage. The Morgen Long Chardonnay Eola-Amity Hills X Omni Vineyard 2022, which comes from an extremely rocky site with gentle slopes, has sophisticated and complex aromas ranging from cashew butter to fresh apricots, slate and sage. It’s cool and creamy, with a bright backbone of acidity. The Temperance Hill Vineyard 2022, meanwhile, is rocky and mineral, but also subtly nutty, with a long and electric finish. We also liked the flinty and taut Witness Tree Vineyard 2022 and the zesty, pristine Eola-Amity Hills 2022 (a blend of two vineyards).

BURGUNDY IN THE RHEINHESSEN

Twenty years ago, the Rheinhessen region was instrumental in transforming the reputation of Germany from being a producer of light, sweet wines to being one of the world’s leading producers of sophisticated dry whites. That was largely the work of winemakers like Klaus-Peter Keller of the Keller winery and Philipp Wittmann of the Wittmann winery, both in the Wonnegau subregion in the southeast of Rheinhessen.

In recent years, though a handful of producers in Rheinhessen’s northwest, led by riesling specialists Wagner-Stempel and Riffel, have led the charge, and last week Senior Editor Stuart Pigott tasted the current wines from three more of the most important producers there.

Stuart first met Tobias Knewitz of the Knewitz winery in 2009, when the winemaker was just 18 years old and just about to start studying at the Geisenheim Wine University. His first wine was a solid dry silvaner, which was a pretty good result for the challenging 2008 vintage.

The dry rieslings and chardonnays of the 2023 vintage and 2022 pinot noirs that Stuart tasted with Knewitz belong to a completely different league. They are a Burgundy-inspired redefinition of what Rheinhessen wines can taste like. No wine shows more forthrightly what that means than the Knewitz Riesling Rheinhessen Steinacker GG 2023, which has an intensely flinty character closer to a Premier Cru Chablis than most high-end dry German rieslings. It is extremely stony and salty at the very focused finish.

The Knewitz Riesling Rheinhessen HB 2023 is even more extraordinary, but there are only 800 bottles of this even more intensely mineral wine. “HB” stands for Honigberg, which becomes a GG site with the 2024 vintage. This masterpiece comes one of the core parcels in this site.

Knewitz is also one of the new movers and shakers of German chardonnay, as exemplified in his Knewitz Chardonnay Rheinhessen Reserve Trocken 2023, which is as concentrated as it is elegant with a wonderful interplay of chalkiness and creaminess. Its little brother, the Knewitz Rheinhessen Weth & Welz 2023, a 50-50 blend of pinot blanc and chardonnay, is one of the best entry-level German wines Stuart has tasted in a long time.

Knewitz is still experimenting with different styles of spatburgunder, or pinot noir, but the results all taste very good. Stuart was knocked out by their village wine, the Knewitz Spätburgunder Rheinhessen Ingelheim EL 2022, which has a stunning harmony of fine tannins and enveloping red fruits aromas.

It is literally a two-minute walk through green fields just outside the small town of Appenheim to the Bischel winery, where the brothers Christian and Matthias Runkel make expressive and elegant dry whites. If you ever wondered what chalky minerality taste like, then look no further than the Bischel Riesling Rheinhessen Appenheim 1G 2023. It somehow manages to square the circle of boldness and silkiness.

The contrast between this wine and the Bischel Riesling Rheinhessen Bingen 1G 2023, from vines growing on poor quarzitic soil, could hardly be more striking. This has ample fine tannins plus aromas of pink grapefruit and wild herbs.

Stuart has also begun tasting the latest releases from France’s Rhone Valley and found one masterpiece in the Raymond Usseglio & Fils Vin de France La Genèse 2022, which combines effusive floral aromas with great concentration and structure. The spicy and wet-stone complexity at the driving finish is off the scale and made Stuart feel like he was staring down a bottomless well. Because this old-vine grenache is a blend of wines from the left and right banks of the Rhone, it has be sold under the extremely humble Vin de France designation.

In Hong Kong, meanwhile, Senior Editor Zekun Shuai attended a special tasting of the 2022 vintage wines of renowned Burgundy producer Domaine des Lambrays as well as a mini-vertical of their Clos des Lambrays pinot noir grand cru wines from 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019 and 1938.

Zekun said It was obvious that 2022 for Clos des Lambrays was a beautiful year after the lighter but supremely delicate 2021, with both vintages contrasting with the much darker, riper and denser 2020. The 2019, meanwhile, sits between 2021 and 2020, showing richness but in a less upfront way than the ripe, extreme 2020.

Domaine des Lambrays began their conversion to organic farming in 2019, and 2022 is their first certified organic vintage. 2022 marked a year in which the domaine, which is now owned by LVMH group, began identifying smaller plots in the 8.6-hectare Clos des Lambrays and vinifying them separately in a new, gravity-fed winery, where no pumping is needed.

Jacques Devauges, the estate director for Domaine des Lambrays, said that 2022 marked the release of four new cuvees from recently acquired vineyards: the Morey St Denis 1er Cru Clos Sorbé, the Clos Baulet, the Vosne Romanée 1er Cru Les Beaux Monts and the Nuits-St-Georges 1er Cru La Richemone. The latter, from a tiny plot on a mild slope, transcends its premier cru status.

Domaine des Lambrays uses a significant amount of whole bunches when making their pinot noirs, especially in vintages where loose bunches are present, since the stalks are more likely to be fully exposed to the sun. The use of new oak is restrained and does not vary significantly among the cru wines, with only about 20 percent new wood in the 2022 Clos des Lambrays, as “terroir should be stronger than technique," according to Devauges.

BUBBLES FROM 1999

Also in Hong Kong, Associate Editor Claire Nesbitt tasted Philipponnat Champagne's latest L.V. (“long vieillissement”) rendition of their top wine, Clos des Goisses. Their L.V. initiative began with the 1992 vintage, and the latest release of the Clos des Goisses L.V. is from 1999. It has fantastic complexity and shows aromas ranging from figs, pears and honeycomb to oyster shells, aniseed and white truffles. On the palate, it remains impressively fresh and pure, with a long, dry finish.

The Clos des Goisses is 5.8-hectare walled vineyard in the village of Mareuil-Sur-Ay, planted mostly to pinot noir with some chardonnay, and it’s a warm, steeply south-facing site. The latest vintage release (not L.V.), 2015, is from a warm and dry vintage, but displays wonderful freshness, with silky, very soft bubbles and mellow fruit, pastry and honey characteristics.

In addition, Claire tasted the latest rosé edition, the Clos des Goisses Juste Extra Brut Rosé 2014, which is from an easygoing vintage with a relatively large harvest. It’s dry and pristine with excellent tension. All three wines were disgorged just under a year ago with a low dosage (added-sugar level) of 4.5 grams per liter, sitting at the Extra Brut (almost bone-dry) sweetness level.

TIME-TESTING MONTEFALCO SAGRANTINOS

Last week, Senior Editor Aldo Fiordelli traveled to Umbria to sample the first releases of Montefalco Sagrantino wines from 2021. The native grape the wine is made from, sagrantino, is one of Italy’s most fascinating varieties. It’s known for its thick skin and seed-rich berries, and it produces wines of immense power and gripping tannins. To draw an international comparison, it bears similarities to tannat.

But the 2021 Montefalco Sagrantinos were not Aldo’s true focus. Instead, to determine whether this robust grape can achieve true greatness over time, he tasted a dozen 2011 Montefalco Sagrantinos. The verdict? Comparing today’s scores with those from their initial release, the wines on average have gained at least two additional rating points.

This underscores the importance of carefully managing extraction from the outset – aging alone cannot work miracles. However, for a variety like sagrantino, time in the bottle does play a crucial role in refining its structure and creating seamless integration in the glass.

Among the standout producers, Marco Caprai, who heads the winery his father founded, Arnaldo Caprai, reaffirmed his position as the benchmark for the appellation.

His Arnaldo Caprai Montefalco Sagrantino Collepiano 2011, which at the time benefited from the expertise of renowned consultant Attilio Pagli, is a deep and complex wine, layered with tertiary aromas of coffee grounds, wild blackberries, prunes and dark chocolate alongside an earthy minerality. The attack is smooth, revealing a full-bodied structure with dense, velvety tannins. Still firm yet beautifully condensed, it boasts chewy acidity and a lingering finish.

Other notable bottles included the Fongoli Montefalco Sagrantino 2011, which was sourced from one of the highest and rockiest areas of the appellation and offers remarkable freshness; the Lungarotti Montefalco Sagrantino 2011, which impressed with its spicy yet vibrant character; and the Antonelli Montefalco Sagrantino 2011, which stood out for its dark, earthy complexity, with a finish that remains taut and austere.

Montefalco Sagrantino wines continue to intrigue with their bold, structured, and unapologetically Italian outlook, and if you have the patience, you will ultimately be rewarded, as we were with the 2011 offerings.

– Jim Gordon, Stuart Pigott, Claire Nesbitt, Zekun Shuai and Aldo Fiordelli 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.