Weekly Tasting Report (July 13-19, 2021): Donnhoff’s Supernaturally Precise Rieslings, a Tide of Tuscan Reds, and Oregon Rises

This report on last week’s wine reviews in our tasting offices in Hong Kong and Germany focuses mostly on the great wines of Germany and Italy, but we also found some outstanding bottles from Oregon, France, Israel and China.

The most compelling story is the excellence Senior Editor Stuart Pigott is finding in Germany with the 2020 vintage after he proclaimed last year that the 2019 was the greatest vintage of his career. But the 2020 is also proving to be a big winner!

“When I started tasting the 2020 German white wines (mostly dry) in the spring of this year, a pattern quickly emerged,” he said in an email on Tuesday. “As a rule they are lighter in body, crisper and more charming than the concentrated and highly structured 2019s. I knew it would be a while before I could taste at the very top producers, but I was pretty sure I knew what the vintage was all about. Then, recently, I traveled to the Pfalz and the Nahe regions and slammed into the radical side of the 2020 vintage. The best 2020 GG dry rieslings from producers like Dr. Burklin-Wolf in the Pfalz and Emrich-Schonleber in the Nahe are very concentrated and have a stunning minerality married to the typical vibrancy of the vintage. Here is riesling greatness!”

Just when he thought he understood 2020, he visited Donnhoff in the Nahe and was stunned again. Stuart said that Cornelius Donnhoff’s best wines – dry GG and sweet Spatlese rieslings from the famous Hermannshohle vineyard site – left him joyfully breathless. “They have perfect balance, astonishing complexity and an almost supernatural precision,” he said. “Here is proof that beauty obeys no rules.”

Why didn’t he see it coming? During the summer of 2020, the drought that began during the incredibly hot summer of 2018 reached its high point. Numerous producers who said that they would never irrigate their vineyards found themselves doing exactly that. It was the right decision, according to Stuart.

Temperatures were not as high as the record peaks of 2019, which reached 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit), but it was very warm, and agricultural soils across Germany were drier than ever recorded. Everyone feared this would lead to broad wines with low acidity, lacking aroma and definition. Astonishingly, in general, the opposite is the case, Stuart found.

There was some drought-stressed fruit, and this was responsible for the disappointing 2020s. “The problem was those grapes often looked great, but they tasted bitter,“ Cornelius Dönnhoff explained. “We rejected them completely.“

The same was true of all the top producers Stuart has tasted so far. We recommend you follow our recommendations carefully to avoid disappointment, because 2020 is a much more inconsistent vintage than 2019.

No less worthy of comment are the spectacular 2018 spätburgunder (pinot noir) from Friedrich Becker in the Pfalz. “For me, 2018 is easily the most impressive modern vintage for pinot noir reds in Germany, and the single-vineyard 2018 wines from Friedrich Becker belong at the very top,” Stuart wrote. “They combine stunning concentration with great tannin structure and excellent freshness. They really show how the best winemakers in Germany have mastered pinot noir winemaking during the last years. Prices remain friendly.”

Plenty of reasonably priced wines are going to be available from Tuscany, as the ratings from our Hong Kong tasting room prove. The balanced and fresh 2018s are so pretty, and most of the wines are very attractive to drink now. Meanwhile, I have been very impressed with the 2019s, which show more richness and warmth than those from the 2018 vintage. The few Tuscan wine producers I have spoken to are very impressed with their reds in 2019.

“There was not a big difference between 2018 and 2019,” said Barbara Widmer of Brancaia in a Zoom interview. “But the difference is that before 2018 you had 2017. The vines needed to recover because 2017 was extremely challenging [drought conditions]. The 2019 we had a very rainy spring, so they started their vegetation period with enough water. And then in 2019 it was definitely a little hotter [than 2018]. But we had so much water in May that heat was not an issue.”

What I have tasted so far certainly shows this, no matter the region in Tuscany. The reds in 2019 show plenty of richness of fruit but brightness and freshness at the same time. It could be another 2015.

The similar excellence of 2018 and 2019 is also showing in our tastings of Oregon at the moment, with associate editor Claire Nesbitt and I reviewing dozens of pinot noirs and chardonnays as well as a few other whites, such as pinot gris. The consistency in quality of Oregon pinot noir is always there, with most wines in the range of 90 to 92 points. Chardonnay seems to have a slightly higher average quality, but we are still tasting more to reach a final conclusion. We expect to rate about 600 wines from Oregon this summer.

In between reviewing hundreds of outstanding quality German wines, Stuart also managed to taste and rate more than 100 Israeli wines. He visited Israel in 2014 and remains impressed with the quality and the rise in small independent wineries. Check out his report. This weekly report includes a large number of wines from the established Israeli winery of Yarden.

Taster and associate editor Zekun Shuai tried a number of wines from Ningxia, which is clearly the leading wine region in China at the moment. He continues to be impressed with the intensity and richness of many wines. Check out his report from a few months back and the wines reviewed in this report.

I also want to make sure you notice my reviews of the new vintage releases from Pol Roger, the revered Champagne house. I was impressed with the focus and length of the new 2013, both normal blend and blanc de blancs. The 2012 rosé was also a gem and highlights the richness and balance of the vintage in general.

Also, I had a quick Zoom tasting with Scot Bilbro, owner of Marietta Cellars in Sonoma County in California about his love of old vines – he sells a white, rosé and red under the OVR (Old Vine Red) moniker – and how wines with European sensibilities and drinkability are the way forward in the Sunshine State.

All About The Vines: Marietta Cellars' Scot Bilbro discusses the history of his winery with James.

And, finally, I tasted my first samples of 2019 Bordeaux that were just bottled recently, and I was happily impressed. The two wines, Chateau Haut-Brisson and Chateau d’Issan, showed the focus and precision of what I found in so many barrel samples of the 2019s, which are very classic in style. They are very aromatic and racy with intense yet refined tannins that go way down the palate giving them great length and structure with finesse. I can’t wait to taste more of them, and I’m already asking whether the 2019 is the best of the trilogy of great modern vintages – 2018, 2019 and 2020.

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

The list of wines below is comprised of bottles tasted and rated during the previous week by James and 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.