The Soul of Rioja and Germany’s Harmonious GGs: Weekly Tasting Report (Aug 30-Sept 5)

We rated 706 wines from nine countries for our latest Weekly Tasting Report, with James personally involved in the tastings and ratings of a number of the top wines, mainly anything that wasn’t German. This was due to the weeklong trip James took to Spain with his wife, Marie, and Senior Editor Zekun Shuai. They visited some of the top producers in the country, focusing mainly on the mountainous region of Gredos as well as Ribera del Duero and Rioja. He also tasted some wine in Greece.

One stop that delivered some great wines was a morning tasting with Telmo Rodriguez in Rioja, who produced some soulful and balanced wines, from his hand-crated single vineyard red, Yjar, to his fabulously energetic barrel-fermented viura called Granja de Nuestra Seńora de Remelluri. Yjar is a new wine that was created a couple of years ago to be sold only through the Bordeaux negociant system around the world. It’s from a 3.8-hectare vineyard located near his winery, Remelluri, outside the town of Labastida. Last year it was the No. 9 wine in our Top 100 Wines of the World 2022. The barrel-fermented white is one of James’ favorite bottles from Spain. It’s very minerally and vivid in character despite the spicy wood.

Rodriguez said during the tasting how wines like Yjar and his other single-vineyard wines, such as Tabuerniga and La Estrada, are reds from Rioja that illustrate what the region should be doing: focusing on places and not on aging methods like the designations of crianza, reserva and gran reserva.  He plans to ditch the appellation and release more vineyard-driven and village wines in the future.

“I am not Elon Musk and I know that the current system sells wine,” he said at his winery. “But the current system doesn’t make sense. I am not interested in a world that is not interested in terroir.” He said to stay tuned for more interesting wines without the moniker of Rioja.

On his return to our office in Tuscany, James spent a morning tasting with the commercial director of the Alto Adige winery of Cantina Terlano and he was blown away by some old wines, including two bottles of aged whites from 1955 and 1983 that were so complex and rich yet remained fresh and youthful. The 1955 was a blend of pinot bianco, chardonnay and sauvignon blanc while the 1983 was a pure pinot bianco. He also tasted an eye-opening pinot bianco “rarity” that was bottled after 24 years on its less that was complex, electric and full of energy. This is what he wrote it last week in Our Wine Choice post.

James also tasted new releases a few days ago in Mykonos, Greece, from what he considers the best winery in country at the moment: T-Oinos. The small vineyard is located on the island of Tinos about a 45-minute boat ride from Mykonos, and the vines are mostly planted in granite soils. The wines have superb clarity and energy, especially the whites from assyrtiko. “Verticality” is a good word to describe them. Bordeaux enologist Stephane Derenoncourt is the consulting winemaker at the estate and says T-Oinos is “one of the most beautiful vineyards on earth.”

But there’s lots of other vineyard-driven driven top wines in this report, particularly from Germany, and Senior Editor Stuart Pigott continues to bulldoze his way through current releases from top names in the country.

For Stuart, last week meant two days of very intense tasting at the official presentation of the new vintage of dry single-vineyard GG wines produced by the members of Germany’s VDP producers association – the last big range of GG wines Stuart is reporting on.

One wine that really did stand out was the Schäfer-Fröhlich Riesling Nahe Felseneck GG 2022, thanks to its amazing harmony (in spite of its very racy acidity). It was bursting with spice, smoke, pomelo and grapefruit on the super-concentrated palate. It really says something about winemaker Tim Frohlich that one of his other GGs, the more succulent and smoky Schäfer-Fröhlich Riesling Nahe Stromberg GG 2022, was hot on the heels of the Felseneck GG. 2022 is another triumph for him.

Two other terrific wines came from the Peter Lauer winery on the Saar (the Mosel’s most important tributary valley). Of these, the Peter Lauer Riesling Mosel Schonfels GG No.11 2022 effortlessly cut through all the nonsense about 2022 being a soft vintage of easygoing wines in Germany. Here, flinty minerality is interwoven with aromas of honeysuckle and lilies, and the acidity is samurai sword-like.

Scroll through the tasting notes below for more stunning GGs from Schlossgut Diel in the Nahe, Prinz in the Rheingau, Acham-Magin and Georg Mosbacher in the Pfalz that Stuart rated similarly highly. They are spectacular examples of what was possible in 2022 if the winemaker got everything right in the vineyard. Sadly, this was not always the case, and Stuart found quite a few wines that didn’t make the GG grade in this vintage.

Many German producers now release their dry riesling GGs two years after harvest, and there were a number of sensational wines among those who did. The Kloster Eberbach Riesling Rheingau Steinberg Goldener Becher GG 2021 stood out not only for its enormous minerality and structure, but also for the way it shimmers with floral, salty and stony character. Furthermore, it is the first dry riesling from the world-famous Steinberg site to hit this kind of high in modern times. The Steinberg is back!

“The Goldener Becher is really the heart of the Steinberg, and many of the great wines of the past came from there, so it made sense to finally put the name on the label,” chief winemaker Kathrin Puff said.

One German red also demands a mention, because the same producer’s dry rieslings also recently wowed Stuart. The Alte Grafschaft Pinot Noir Franken Kaffelstein 2020 is a unique and totally original pinot noir for this region or anywhere on Planet Wine, for that matter. The aromas of wild herbs, grilled artichoke and ripest red berries are married to an astonishingly cool personality for the super-ripe 2020 vintage. The concentration builds and builds as it washes over your palate in a great wave.

Alte Grafschaft is an unusual winery for a number of reasons, one of them being that it is half-owned by Jerome Legras of Champagne Legras & Haas. The other owner is Norbert Spielmann, whose son Julius is deeply involved in running the steep vineyards, many of which are on narrow, ancient terraces. Cultivating them is hard work and expensive, so the Spielmanns and Legras have made a huge commitment in this stunningly beautiful but little-known corner of Germany.

Stuart also tasted the best dry rieslings he ever encountered from Oregon in the Pacific Northwest of the United States. Brooks Wine has been focused on pinot noir and riesling since its founding exactly a quarter of a century ago by the late Jimi Brooks. The Brooks Riesling Willamette Valley Ara 2021 has enveloping tech, nectarine and mandarin orange aromas with a whiff of flint. It is a very ripe and concentrated wine for just 12.5 percent alcohol. Several other 2021 vintage rieslings from Brooks also amazed Stuart, and together the 2021 rieslings from Brooks set a higher bar for this grape in the state.

– James Suckling, Editor/Chairman, and Stuart Pigott, Senior Editor

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.