2013 Germany

South Germany (Part 1):   Rheinhessen   Pfalz   Baden   Württemberg   Franken

Central Germany (Part 2):   Ahr   Mittelrhein  Nahe   Rheingau

North Germany (Part 3):   Mosel   Saar   Ruwer

Two thousand thirteen is not a vintage for the faint of heart. High in both acidity and dry extract, the 2013s were quite austere after bottling. Over the last several months, however, the wines have gained both depth and body. The vintage also saw a great deal of botrytis. How these various components were managed at each individual estate was the key to success.

“The must weights are not yet that high and the acidities are still bracing,” commented Werner Schönleber from Emrich-Schönleber in Monzingen when I spoke with him about halfway through harvest. The resulting wines, in particular the Rieslings, are certainly not as rich and unctuous as they were in 2011 nor do they have the balance of the 2012s. Instead, they are more reminiscent of 2010 or 2008, vintages in which the tip of the iceberg was exceptional but the broad mass of wines is considerably less interesting.

Father and son team Werner and Frank Schönleber tending their vines in Monzingen

The 2013 Growing Season

In meteorological terms, 2013 was marked by a cool spring, late budbreak and uneven flowering. “Climate change was not the issue this year,” quipped Thomas Haag from the Mosel’s Schloss Lieser with a smile. The ensuing summer alternated between heat spikes and cool, damp intermezzos. By early September it was clear that the harvest would be fairly late, as the grapes were still far from ripe.

October brought abundant rains, often accompanied by warm nights that hastened the onset of botrytis. As the many showers fell unevenly, some regions were hit harder than others. During the 5-week period before and during crush, the Birkweiler area in the southern Pfalz drowned in 25 cm (9.8 in) of rain. After culling only the healthiest grapes, serious producers were left with only half a normal crop at best. Only a few kilometers north, the Mittelhaardt region experienced less than half as much rain, which left growers such as Steffen Christmann in Gimmeldingen with an excellent vintage of a satisfying volume.

Not surprisingly, some of the hardest-hit producers spoke of a very quick harvest, with their entire crop crushed within a week. The quick harvest was a race against botrytis, as the grapes were evolving from green to gold to brown at an alarming rate. Hansjörg Rebholz, who picked his Kastanienbusch vineyard a few days later than his colleagues, ended up only being able to produce an Auslese from his Riesling grapes, as opposed to a dry wine. Only those estates that were meticulous in their vineyards and sorted ruthlessly at harvest were able to make truly exciting sweet wines.

Further north, and in particular along the Mosel, the situation was both more difficult and more nuanced. Those who harvested early to avoid the ensuing onslaught of rot brought home unripe grapes that made squeaky-clean but utterly green and charmless Rieslings. Those who waited were rewarded with a single window of better weather in late October. The grapes harvested at this opportune time had more botrytis but better expressed the virtues of the vintage. Must weights quickly skyrocketed however, so many estates in the middle Mosel bottled a high percentage of Ausleses and little to no dry wine.

Here, too, yields were low. Some growers made only one-third the volume of an average year. Coming on the back of short crops in both 2012 and 2010, 2013 has strained the finances of many small estates, most of which are unable to raise their prices sufficiently to recover the loss.

Riesling grapes just before the 2013 harvest

2013 Vintage Characteristics

Germany’s total wine volume in 2013 (8.4 million hectoliters) was down 7% from the previous vintage, which is 250,000 hectoliters under the ten-year average. That said, the more quality-conscious producers experienced much lower yields. “We had little more than half a normal crop,” said Franz Wehrheim from Birkweiler in the southern Pfalz. That is a refrain I heard from many other producers as I made my annual rounds last summer.

While the comparison to 2010 is often evoked, it misses one key point. Two thousand thirteen has considerably more botrytis, a welcome change for some estates after the almost complete lack of it in 2012. Fortunately, in 2013 rot was predominately noble in nature, not the mildew or grey rot that plagued vintages such as 2006 and 2000. For producers with a market for Spätleses and Ausleses, this anomaly could be turned to a decided advantage. On the other hand, further south, where dry wines fetch a premium, the harvest was far more difficult and time-consuming. Even scrupulously sorted grapes often carry an echo of botrytis that can tarnish the purity of a wine. In that sense, 2012 was, with a few noticeable exceptions, a more balanced vintage.

Beyond botrytis, high acidity levels remain the leitmotif of the vintage. For some reason, as the grapes ripened and must weights rose, acidities did not fall as quickly as was generally expected. This has prompted producers such as Klaus-Peter Keller from Dalsheim in the Rheinhessen to compare 2013 with 2008, a vintage he admires. “There was perhaps not a lot of great wine from that year,” he says, “but the best are far more interesting than those from warmer years like 2011, 2009 and 2007.” Keller believes that the finest 2013s will have a similar development curve and be definitely superior to the 2010s, which he thinks have remained a bit one-dimensional.

How each producer coped with the high acidity levels was crucial to the quality of the wines he bottled. While almost every grower deacidified at least some of their wines, there was no patent answer. Estates like Schloss Lieser in the Mosel, Breuer and Künstler in the Rheingau, and Christmann in the Pfalz elected to be fearless in the face of the unusually high acidity. This strategy served them well, but not every grower had the ripeness of fruit and extract to permit such bravery.

Deacidification is a common method for reducing acidity in vintages such as 2013. While the practice is not inherently wrong, the finest wines tend to be those for which neither deacidification nor chapitalization (or other manipulations) is required. Unfortunately, many producers were unsuccessful in seeking a point of balance with their 2013s. The number of well-known estates that misjudged their de-acidifications or favored partial malolactic conversions to make their wines more palatable is greater than I would have liked to see.

As one of the more northerly wine regions, Germany has long struggled with the vagaries of weather, though the climate is far more genial today than a generation ago. As in all of Europe, the effects of global warming are being felt along the Rhine; it is no longer a question of ripening fruit, but of prolonging hang time to achieve maximum flavor. Although 2013 was more of a classical vintage, the way each region dealt with that issue is sketched briefly in their respective introductions.