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“My father reports never having had such a combination of generous yields with healthy, optimally ripe fruit as in 2016, and I have certainly never enjoyed such a relaxed harvest,” relates young Johannes Gross of a vintage that, by contrast, involved cruelly-reduced yields for so many growers in other German regions. Harvest occupied almost the entire month of October, though the first week was largely dedicated to non-Riesling grapes. (I’ll have to taste the Gross wines from Pinots one of these days.) Both acids and must weights were, as Gross puts it, “high enough – we weren’t complaining” – and in vintage-typical fashion remained remarkably stable over the course of harvest. At this estate, whose Rieslings often display the slight austerity and clockwork-like combination of tightly-coiled energy with complex inner-workings that were long Rheingau-wide benchmarks, it’s not hard to imagine why conditions in 2016 should have been deemed ideal. “I will say, though,” relates Gross, “that the young wines, which delighted me in the cellar, caused me some concern soon after March and April bottlings when they were very difficult, quite closed and neutral. And in some instances I think they have still not entirely returned to form,” he adds, referring to our early August, 2017 session. That cautionary observation certainly fits the ostensibly top dry wines I tasted, which weren’t bottled until mid-June. Another important factor in the evolution of these wines cannot be overlooked: Grosses have employed screwcaps selectively for fifteen years and exclusively since 2014, with results – detailed in several of my notes – that some tasters may relish; others, not so much. To be perfectly candid, given how many wines at this address bring the words “classic Rheingau” to my lips, I would feel more comfortable if the ostensibly best and likely longest-lived bottlings were at least partly finished with top-quality, pre-selected (and, granted, expensive) natural corks.

I came away from this year’s visit – which included substantial time in the Grosses’ vineyards – with a wealth of additional insights into what make their wines tick. One fascinating detail is the small, cylindrical tanks in which so many of them are raised. These were custom-built for the Gross cellar and are unusually shallow – thereby enhancing the effects of extended contact with full lees that Grosses favor. As mentioned in my review below of the 2016 Johannisberger Vogelsang Riesling feinherb Alte Reben, the Grosses plan to undertake their own sélection massale. Meantime, recently-planted vineyards – notably in the Kläuserweg – reflect a multiplicity of clones, so as to give those stands a leg-up from the beginning in terms of genetic diversity. And as Gross senior (“Gerd”) demonstrated to me, he has carefully and skeptically followed the many clones emerging over the years from Geisenheim’s Research Institute and is acutely aware that until recently these were developed under an aspect not just irrelevant but potentially detrimental today. As he put it: “when I was growing up and starting out as a vintner, we fought for every degree of Oechsle we could get, whereas today almost the opposite is the case.” (For considerable background on this estate, see the introduction to my previous report on it, which was focused on wines of the 2015 vintage.)

From Rheingau and Mittelrhein Riesling 2016: Stress Test (Jul 2018) by David Schildknecht

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2016 Riesling Johannisberger Vogelsang trocken

Release Price: $20

Color: White

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