2018 Riesling Kiedricher Klosterberg Spätlese

Eva Fricke’s 2018 harvest began in mid-August in order to capture fruit whose acidity would be appropriate to sparkling wine. Vines in Lorch suffered from an unusually dry summer even by prevailing Rheingau standards, and the stress translated, according to Fricke, into retarded ripeness of flavor, despite relatively high must weights. But the positive side of drought, she noted, was an absence of fungal infection, minimal need for spraying of any sort (the estate is in biodynamic conversion), and ultimately the cleanest, healthiest grapes she says she has ever had. Given her perception of lagging phenolic development as well as her hope for some precipitation – of which there was finally a bit at the end of September, even in Lorch – Fricke postponed picking her best sites until the first half of October. A few pickings extended into the third week of that month, adding up to the longest harvest in her young estate’s history. Pressing was especially gentle and pre-fermentative skin contact shorter than usual, in a successful effort to avoid bitterness and to enhance clarity and liveliness. There was no fining, lower-than-typical SO2 additions, and, as usual, all of Fricke’s Rieslings were bottled by May. The results are distinguished by their overall levity and finesse, achieved in no small part by permitting many of the wines to finish fermenting in the halbtrocken range. (For detailed background on this estate, consult the extensive introductions to my reports focused on its vintage 2015 and 2017 wines.)