Advantage Nahe: 2016 Riesling Excellence

BY DAVID SCHILDKNECHT | APRIL 26, 2018

No German Riesling region can boast more consistent and distinctively delicious success in vintage 2016 than the Nahe, but terroir and weather don’t offer the full explanation.

I have described the remarkable meteorological rollercoaster that was vintage 2016 in Germany’s Riesling-dominated regions in some detail in my reports on the Greater Mosel (Part 1 and Part 2). Located between Mosel and Rhine both literally and in the typical evolution of its growing season, the Nahe entered mid-September of 2016 with fruit considerably advanced in ripeness vis-à-vis the Mosel – a ripeness enhanced by marginally more water-retentive, albeit stony slopes that helped all but very young vines get through the torrid, rainless August and early September without stress or shutdown – yet not advanced to the point where there was any pressure to harvest.

The Disibodenberg, being revived by Luisa von Racknitz, is a formerly monastic Nahe site associated with Hildegard von Bingen (Krüger-Rumpf’s Abtei Ruppertsberg another) that’s as impressive viticulturally as it is visually.

A Long, Relaxed Harvest