Rheinhessen Riesling 2016: The Triumph of Subtlety

BY DAVID SCHILDKNECHT | MAY 24, 2018

In 2016, Mother Nature and Rheinhessen’s top growers seem to have made the same request of one another: “Cool it!” Happily, both complied. Without question, Rheinhessen growers have experienced two outstanding vintages in 2015 and 2016, but the latter boasts a surplus of wines that display the imponderable interplay of balance, elegance and charm, which to my palate give them a slight qualitative edge and an at least equal claim on cellar space. 

Rheinhessen – in particular the rolling, only rarely steep hills of its calcareous Wonnegau sector – has been a 21st-century darling among German wine critics and well-heeled German Riesling lovers. Such good fortune is owed in significant measure to the exemplary wines of Klaus Peter Keller and Philipp Wittmann, who are nowadays generally regarded as among their nation’s top six or eight wine growers. (For many influential observers, make that “top three or four.”) In the wake of Keller’s and Wittmann’s success, numerous younger talents have emerged, inspired and in some instances mentored by them. 

Meanwhile, the so-called Rheinfront, or Roter Hang, at Nierstein and Nackenheim – the sector that almost throughout the 20th century, really until its final decade, was considered not just Rheinhessen’s foremost but rather its sole claim to viticultural greatness – has recently been undergoing a welcome revival, one that will hopefully grow before long to encompass a few more of Nierstein’s once-renowned addresses. The recent evolution of Rheinhessen viticulture can’t be discussed without mentioning Daniel Wagner of Weingut Wagner-Stempel, who is single-handedly demonstrating the extraordinary potential of what is locally quite understandably known as “Rheinhessian Switzerland,” a sector whose soils and microclimates are akin to those of the immediately adjacent Nahe. 

Westhofen’s chalky, largely gentle slopes – once denigrated as Rheinhessen’s viticultural hinterland – are now home to some of Germany’s most prestigious Rieslings, above all those of Keller and Wittmann.

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