Rheinhessen and Nahe 2015: Cool Concentration from a “Warm Vintage” 

BY DAVID SCHILDKNECHT | NOVEMBER 13, 2017

As I noted in my earlier reports on vintage 2015 in Riesling Germany, the Rhine growing regions effectively experienced two vintages this year: one for those who harvested most of their fruit in September, and another for those who were able, like their colleagues on the Mosel, to postpone the majority of picking until well into October, or even into November.

Since 2010, Gut Hermannsberg, the former Nahe Staatsdomäne housed in the Schlossböckelheimer Kupfergrube (one of three estate monopoles), is restoring its great vineyards and rendering Rieslings worthy to stand alongside those of the amazing Upper Nahe trio Dönnhoff, Emrich-Schönleber and Schäfer-Fröhlich

Chilling Out

In the red Permian sandstone “Roter Hang” of Nackenheim and Nierstein – famous precisely because these steep slopes consistently ripened Riesling in an era when other sectors routinely experienced several deficient vintages each decade – picking in 2015 was generally completed before the second week of October. The results I tasted were largely excellent, but if you ask Klaus Peter Keller, his limestone-rich home vineyards in the Wonnegau had a meteorological advantage vis-à-vis his parcels in Nierstein. “We got nights with zero degrees Celsius beginning around the 10th of October, such as were lacking in 2014,” he related, “which turned the 2015 harvest into a chilly delight [kühlen Vergnügen]. On the morning of October 14 it started snowing, and after that the nights were 0° or -1° C. In the mornings, you could barely feel your fingers while picking.” Keller thinks he hasn’t had a more successful vintage.

Subtle, wind-borne late September desiccation of just a few berries in each healthy bunch, reports Daniel Wagner, had “[an] effect nothing short of remarkable” in concentrating ripe acidity and aromatics