Rheinhessen & Rheingau: Riesling Triumphs After Rain

BY ANNE KREBIEHL MW | OCTOBER 03, 2024

Rheingau and Rheinhessen produced world-class Rieslings in 2023. The wines are bursting with flavor and delineated by freshness, but moderate in alcohol. “The nectarine and curious peach into my hands themselves do reach…” This striking line from Andrew Marvell’s poem The Garden involuntarily popped into my mind repeatedly while tasting the 2023 Rieslings; such was their verve and expression. Even the entry-level Rieslings shine. However, the year was not an easy one.

The entrance to the historic Steinberg Vineyard at Kloster Eberbach.

Viticultural skills, timely decisions and a sufficient workforce were needed to capture the brilliant fruit. An initially dry year was drenched in late summer rains, which the late-ripening Riesling weathered with aplomb–at least in the right hands and sites. The steep, stony slopes of historic renown proved their exalted status all over again, and so did well-drained, gentler slopes. Water availability advanced ripeness as well as aromatic development, and if there is one operative attribute for this Riesling vintage, it is juiciness. In the Rheingau, off-dry and nobly sweet wines with electric acidity are an added bonus. Some of them will outlive us all. The 2022 Pinot Noirs are among the best German Spätburgunders ever made.

The 2023 Rheinhessen Growing Season

Rheinhessen is a vast and diverse growing region, offering the coolness of Tertiary limestone in its southern Wonnegau, the savor of iron-rich Permian Rotliegendes on the Red Slope on its western confine along the river Rhine, and a diverse patchwork of geological formations in its north and northwest–encompassing quartzite, porphyry and more limestone. All of these find beautiful expression in 2023. Daniel Wagner of Weingut Wagner-Stempel in Rheinhessen’s far northwest sketched the year: “A wonderfully dry spring gave us excellent flowering conditions in late May and early June, without millerandage. While we entered the year with good water reserves, the weather turned extremely dry. We already feared we would have to water the young vines. Then, on July 8, we got 50 liters (50mm) of rain. We opened a bottle of Champagne to celebrate. It was a very local event, and everyone envied us. Two weeks later, however, the picture was different because the rain never stopped.” Wagner says this was a “catastrophe” for the early-ripening varieties but a boon for Riesling. Weiss and Grauburgunder were soft and riper, and the already tightly packed berries on the grape bunches had no room to swell, so they burst and opened themselves to rot. Speed was of the essence. Riesling, however, less advanced in ripeness, could take advantage of the water availability and continued ripening, resulting in radiantly beautiful fruit.

In the Selztal in Rheinhessen’s north, where Tertiary limestones are mixed with marl, loess and clay, Tobias Knewitz described the situation after a rain-drenched August as “tense.” The combination of wet weather and high temperatures turned the harvest into a race against time that required the most stringent selection–again, with Riesling far less affected than earlier-ripening varieties.