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Leitz

Johannes Leitz and his team managed to not only harvest a normal-sized crop from 2016 overall but a considerably larger one in the Rüdesheimer Berg sites than had been possible in the unremittingly warm, dry 2015. “We had relentless fungal pressure,” reports Leitz, “and there was one week in which we had to hand spray 16 hectares” – well over one-third of his estate’s surface area – “because you couldn’t get in with a tractor. And I can tell you,” he adds, “that I saw parcels on the Rüdesheimer Berg where not one cluster was left hanging by August because their owners couldn’t get in to spray on a timely basis.” Picking was spread across the entire month of October – in the case of Kaisersteinfels all the way until November 10! “These aren’t fake photos,” Leitz effuses while flashing through one image after another of copious blemish-free, loose-hanging clusters captured in late October and early November. “Truly,” he insists, “I have never before harvested such an abundance of grapes like these.” Must weights moved little during this period and acidity, while marginally milder than in 2015, remained stable and dominantly tartaric. Given the remarkable turnabout that took place in what until August looked likely to be one of the least successful growing seasons of his career – “I remember 1987,” he notes, “but we thought it was going to be much worse than that” – Leitz refers to 2016 as “the miracle vintage” (Wunderjahrgang). And it’s scarcely hyperbole to characterize some of the resultant wines as miraculously successful even in the context of Leitz’s nearly thirty years in charge of his family’s estate.

In addition to the salutary effects of a prolonged and well-strategized harvest, there is little question that ever-greater sensitivity to the extent of pre-fermentative skin contact and sedimentation as well as to pressure and selectivity at the press have helped impart to these latest Leitz wines a new level of refinement, clarity and complexity. But he credits a combination of viticultural practice and nature with the decisive roles. “In my long years of learning-by-doing,” he says, “I had come to realize that the clearer the must, the more precise, brilliant, razor-sharp the resultant wine. And so, I have always insisted on aggressive clarification, fully recognizing that this also takes something positive away from the wine. In 2016, the grapes were so healthy that we barely settled the musts after pressing but instead just let them ferment, as the saying goes, mit Speck und Dreck [‘with all the muck and bacon.’] This also made for drier dry wines,” he explains, because the musts were rich in nutrients for the ambient yeasts. Fermentation at this address has never been hurried-along, but the Grosse Gewächse from 2016 could already be bottled by late spring. That said, when I revisited them in late January, 2018, they surpassed my already enthusiastic August, 2017 impressions. In addition to those vintage 2016 wines reviewed below, Leitz rendered an old vines Sylvaner from the Drachenstein about which I learned only belatedly and on which I hope to report subsequently. Also omitted from my tastings were two rosés and the Klosterlay Kabinett. (For much more about this estate consult the introduction to my report on its 2014s; and for a few updates my introduction to its 2015s. My tasting notes on Leitz 2014s and 2015s incorporate information about the geological underpinnings and other features of the sites he farms.

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

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2016 Riesling Eins Zwei Dry trocken

Release Price: $18

Color: White

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