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Pfeffingen

“Twenty-fifteen was a good year for us,” related Jan Eymael. “For the first time in many years we had a [long-term] normal crop of 60 hectoliters per hectare. Yes, it was hot” – at one point, temperatures here reached 104°F (40°C) – “but the heat came on gradually rather than in spikes, so the vines and grapes were able to get used to it. And although there were some instances of berries bursting after the early September rain, we didn’t get any rot. In fact, the vintage was essentially botrytis-free, and we haven’t had such healthy fruit in a long time. We could have let the grapes hang for four more weeks if we’d wanted to, but there was already high ripeness.” Actually, a small portion of them was left hanging – and for even longer than that. Generic estate Riesling got picked September 18. Just four days later, the Grosse Gewächse were being brought in, making this by any measure the earliest Riesling harvest in the estate’s history. But what little bit of Scheurebe was left for eventual Auslese and BA wasn’t collected until November 9. Eymael called 2015 “a super year for the aromatic varieties,” and he had no worries about treating Scheurebe and Gewürztraminer destined for dry wine to significant pre-fermentative skin contact. Even where such skin contact took place, there is a vivid sense of bright acidity. “The acids are generally 80 percent tartaric,” noted Eymael by way of explanation, “whereas usually we’re happy if malic and tartaric acidity are 50-50.” Since the Grosse Gewächse – not for the first time in recent years here - reached 14 percent and 14.5 percent alcohol, it’s almost surely a good thing those grapes didn’t hang any longer, and for all of 2015s virtues, in that genre Eymael’s 2014s are marginally more impressive and better-balanced.

Jan Eymael’s grandfather Karl Fuhrmann, sadly, did not live to help harvest the 2016 vintage. This inspiring pioneer of late-20th-century Pfalz viticulture took the reins at Pfeffingen as a young man in 1952 and was active right up until his death. He was already locally revered when he received me on my first viticultural tour of Germany in 1984, and he was largely responsible, along with former Müller-Catoir cellarmaster Hans-Günter Schwarz, for the spread of serious qualitative aspirations for Scheurebe as both a dry and a sweet wine. Fuhrmann’s frankness and generosity, like Schwarz’s, were the epitome of what is best about Pfalz wine culture and made every visit an occasion for enlightenment, delight and gratitude. (For a bit more background on this estate, consult the introduction to my reviews of its 2014s.)

From 2015 Rhine Riesling: No Pfalz Modesty (Aug 2017) by David Schildknecht

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2015 Riesling Ungsteiner trocken

Color: White

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