Pfalz Riesling Perfection and More Elegance and Drinkability in Tuscany: Weekly Tasting Report (July 26-Aug 1)

Our latest Weekly Tasting Report covers 839 wines and is headlined by Senior Editor Stuart Pigott's trip to a string of the leading producers in the Pfalz region of Germany, which lies directly to the north of Alsace in France. Both regions enjoy warm and dry summers, but 2022 was a hot drought year that could have led to problem wines. The first tastings of Pfalz's 2022 vintage, however, surprised.

Dr. Burklin-Wolf is one of the legendary wine estates of Germany, and the 2019 vintage saw them in top form. With the 2022 vintage, the dynamic duo of winemaker Nicola Libelli, who comes from Piacenza, Italy, by way of Geisenheim Wine University, and director Steffen Brahner have landed another coup.

Two of their seven GG (or “GC” in this case) dry rieslings received perfect scores: the breathtakingly graceful and filigree Dr. Bürklin-Wolf Riesling Pfalz Kirchenstück GC 2022 and the mind-bendingly concentrated and mineral Dr. Bürklin-Wolf Riesling Pfalz Pechstein GC 2022. The Kirchenstuck is always a very limited production wine, but there’s quite a bit more of the Pechstein. All seven of this group garnered spectacular scores, and the dry, entry-level wines (estate riesling and village wines) showed very well, too.

The other thing that really stood out was the way the weissburgunder, or pinot blanc, grape excelled under the hot and dry conditions. Stuart has never given higher ratings to the dry wines of this grape than his rave for the extremely concentrated and creamy but uplifting Ökonomierat Rebholz Weissburgunder Pfalz Mandelberg GG 2022 and the no less intense Dr. Wehrheim Weissburgunder Pfalz Mandelberg GG 2022, with its deep chalky minerality. And yes, they are both from the same high-altitude site. Also look out for the Burgundian style Müller-Catoir Weissburgunder Pfalz Herzog EL 2022, another amazing example of how well suited this grape is to the new climatic conditions in the Pfalz.

The Pfalz often strikes us a very conservative region, but the first wines from Karsten Peter are pretty radical in the best sense of the word. The Karsten Peter Riesling Pfalz Saumagen 2022 is very compact with brain-rattling primal energy and has great aging potential. This producer used to be called Castel Peter, but was long leased out by the family. Karsten Peter (who remains the chief winemaker of Gut Hermannsberg in the Nahe) took back the vineyards in 2021 and rebooted the operation, focusing on dry riesling, chardonnay and pinot noir. Stuart was impressed with everything he had.

Christmann is a much longer established and is also well known because Steffen Christmann is the president of the VDP, Germany’s equivalent of the Union des Grand Crus in Bordeaux. For several years, his daughter Sophie has been reformulating the wine style in a cooler and more restrained manner.

As stunning as their 2022 dry rieslings are, the quality of their spatburgunder, or pinot noir, reds from the challenging 2021 vintage is even more surprising. Here the star is the very spicy and savory Christmann Spätburgunder Pfalz Idig 2021.

However, it would be a mistake to think that 2022 is a homogeneously great vintage for the Pfalz. Muller-Catoir's winemaker, Martin Franzen, explained that "in 2022 if you didn't have the yields under control, then the vines collapsed, the foliage turned yellow and you ended up as a loser!"

And anyone expecting high alcoholic levels in these wines should think again. Almost all the dry rieslings tasted in the Pfalz were in the 11.5 percent to 12.5 percent range – well below the level typical of recent vintages.

A FOCUS ON HARMONY AND ELEGANCE

In Italy, James spent a couple of days with his wife, Marie, on the Tuscan coast visiting a number of wineries including Masseto, Ornellaia, Petra and Tua Rita. He also went to the headquarters of Marchesi Antinori in Chianti Classico and tasted with the CEO, Renzo Cotarella. The takeaway was that everyone he saw is dialing back on extraction and maceration in their winemaking and focusing even more on harmony and elegance.

“People don’t want to drink heavy wines anymore,” Cotarella said while tasting with James in Antinori’s tasting lab along with two Antinori winemakers.

Added Piero Antinori, the legendary vintner of Italy and president of Antinori: “Everywhere people want to drink more refined, more drinkable wines.”

This tasting report includes a review of the new release of Antinori’s sangiovese and cabernet blend, Tignanello, which set the tone for modern Italian winemaking in the 1970s. James was impressed with the 2020 Tignanello’s balance, which gives it excellent drinkability. The same could be said about the character of the second wine of Masseto, the 2021 Massetino. The almost pure merlot is so beautiful to taste now that James recommends drinking it even though it will be better after four years of bottle age.

Another Tuscan wine you’re going to want to check out is the island red from Gorgona, a project of the Frescobaldi wine family and the Gorgona Penal Institute on Gorgona Island, just off the Tuscan coast. You may have heard of their white wine, but Gorgona also makes a small quantity of a sangiovese and vermentino nero blend red that has depth and finesse as well as complexity.

James went to the island in 2019 and was impressed with the special oceanic microclimate and marlstone soils. All the viticulture and winemaking are done by inmates of the prison.

James also tasted a small vertical of the pure cabernet franc from the Bolgheri estate of Argentiera, Ventaglio. The results of the ratings of the 2018, 2019 and 2020 are published here. He thinks that this wine may become the new benchmark for the grape in Tuscany, if not Italy at large. It’s a small production of only a few thousand cases. The only problem is that it costs more than 600 Euros a bottle.

Finally, he visited the winery and tasted a vertical of about a dozen vintages of Petra, the Bordeaux blend made near the coastal town of Suvereto. And he was happy to see a switch from an overly wooded and concentrated red to a polished and refined one. Owner Vittorio Moretti was at the tasting and said he instructed his winemakers to focus more on the quality of what they have in their estate-grown grapes and less on old-style winemaking.

James and the tasting team also rated a number of Champagnes over the past week, which were included in our Champagne Annual Report.

THE APEX OF ADELAIDE HILLS

South Australia is the engine room of Australian wine culture, from a volumetric standpoint as well as a patrimonial one. After all, the state is responsible for the majority of Australian wine produced across quality tiers. It boasts the world’s oldest vines in the Barossa and a new-wave zeitgeist of grenache in McLaren Vale. The best expressions are remarkable, beaming red fruit allusions underlain by salty diaphanous tannins, like ersatz pinot noir from the Mediterranean! Then there is one of the country’s strongest proponents of terroir in Wendouree, the Clare Valley stalwart. These are wines of a ferruginous timbre, inimitable of place and prized by collectors.

In a welcome contrast to these three regions, which are warm to very warm, Adelaide Hills is defined by a cooler, more subdued climate. Its landscape is hilly and undulating, ebbing between rivulets and diving into gullies, verdant and bucolic, with pastoral fields interlaced with small vineyards, rather than any vast expanse. Producers here are mostly smaller scale. Chardonnay is exceptional. Pinot meunier, promising. Syrah, riveting!

A recent tasting of the latest releases in Adelaide Hills led to some of the very best: Murdoch Hill’s small batch, single-vineyard cuvees, the Landau Oakbank Adelaide Hills Syrah 2022 and Orion Oakbank Syrah 2022. The Landau 2021 was among the top-scoring wines last year and the 2022 version is no different. It was another cool year, attenuated and European of styling, with ample water in the ground to promote a long, gradual ripening window as things dried out following veraison into the beginning of summer. This sort of ripening pattern facilitates optimally ripe fruit of restrained sugars, modest alcohol levels and sinuous tannins, buffered by natural acid retention. The quality of fruit was high, according to winemaker Michael Downer. While the crop was abstemious, the vintage pattern was certainly preferable to a fast and furious hot year, when sugars outpace phenolic ripening and alcohols soar.

The conditions and craft resulted in pointed aromas of lilac, iodine, tapenade and blue fruits in both wines. There was a little more oak, whole bunch briar, charcuterie and grunt in the Orion, while the Landau had supple tannins and pixelated freshness. These are complex wines for Northern Rhone syrah lovers, best decanted or cellared short to mid-term, before a contemplative workout in the glass.

– Stuart Pigott, James Suckling and Ned Goodwin MW 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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