2017 Riesling Deidesheimer Langenmorgen Grosses Gewächs

Steffen Christmann professes to having been taken somewhat by surprise at just how quickly his vintage 2017 fruit matured, and consequently by what, even in the context of the new millennium, constituted a very early starting date for harvest – namely, September 4, with the first Riesling arriving only a few days later. (Unsurprisingly, the estate shattered that record in 2018.) Christmann attributes this precocious ripeness in part to the Mittelhaardt’s having received just enough rain at moments when the vines might otherwise have shut down. Sporadic mid-September rain led to a stretch of off-and-on picking, but Christmann’s team made up for that by (among other things) setting an estate record for the volume of Riesling grapes picked in a single day. The early completion of harvest was only partly motivated by concern that rot would develop, and in fact, temperatures after mid-September turned cool enough to avoid that. A more significant factor was Christmann’s evolving strategy – discussed at length in the introduction to my report on his 2016s – of harvesting at lower potential alcohol, thereby maximizing animating acidity, flavor interplay and digestibility. And by mid-September, Riesling in Christmann’s top sites had in some instances already reached the mid-90s in degrees Oechsle. “In fact,” he recalled, “we began to worry that the Oechsle might gallop away from us, so we were happy that cool temperatures stabilized them.” The last Riesling was brought in on September 26. Yields were the estate’s lowest since 2010, largely as a result of frost. Christmann reported that the young 2017s lost at least a full gram of acidity in tank or cask to tartrate precipitation, though that still left more than enough efficacious tartaric acid to animate the resulting wines.

I had the pleasure this year, at my request, of tasting with Sophie Christmann, the individual who will direct her family’s estate once it comes time for an official generational hand-off. (It should once again be noted that her grandfather Karl-Friedrich, who was responsible for elevating the family estate to national prominence, remains at age 90 very actively involved both hands-on and as an adviser.) My interest had been particularly piqued after learning that the first bottling to represent a project undertaken solely by Sophie Christmann is a fourth estate Pinot Blanc. Regular readers will know of my love for this mutant Pinot and my belief that the existence of four or more different bottlings at some top Pfalz addresses – most notably those of Christmann, Rebholz and Wehrheim – is by no means excessive given the quality, diversity and site-sensitivity of the results. But as a Pinot[-Blanc]phile, I was more troubled than encouraged by something Steffen Christmann told me in response to a questionnaire I sent to growers concerning Pinot Blanc’s future at their estates: “So yes, we are giving this variety a chance, even though at this point we assume that 20 years from now, we’ll only be growing Riesling and Pinot Noir, since these varieties have the potential to yield truly great wines in the Mittelhaardt, something about which we are not entirely convinced in the case of Pinot Blanc.” In fact, a prime reason for Sophie Christmann’s essaying a new Pfarrwingert bottling is that the Christmanns are considering the eventual elimination of Pinot Blanc (and in fact, also of Riesling) from their share of Gimmeldinger Biengarten, a vineyard that they have concluded is best suited to Pinot Noir. I hope and trust that I have not been unduly influenced in assessing the relevant 2017 Pinot Blancs by the fact that I am rooting for a reversal of Christmann père’s “assumption” and hoping for his daughter – whose practical experience has thus far largely focused on Pinot Noir – to emerge as a champion of Pinot Blanc. But any reader can compare my reports on past vintages to see that I judge the 2017s – excited though I am by the addition of a fourth – to reflect “merely” the usual impressive Christmann Pinot Blanc performance. (Speaking of Pinot Noir, I once again omitted that grape from my session at Christmann, partly due to time constraints but also because, as with quite a few Pfalz estates, I seem incapable of appreciating the approach taken here and its resultant smoky, drying expression of oak. I shall, however, revisit Christmann’s red Pinots at some point in the near future, especially in anticipation of whatever influence Sophie Christmann may exercise.)

After more than a dozen years of eyeing it with increasing interest, Christmann has begun in stages to take control of half of the nearly 20-acre Vogelsang vineyard. This fossiliferous, active-lime-rich and in places quite stony site towers over Neustadt and is surpassed in elevation among Mittelhaardt vineyards solely by the Odinstal (about which I have written in my reports on the eponymous Wachenheim winery). Müller-Catoir will acquire the other half in parallel, thus ensuring the collaborative perpetuation but also the rebirth of a historic yet nowadays obscure vineyard. As even a brief consultation of 19th-century sources confirms, these steep slopes once enjoyed some of the region’s highest viticultural reputations. The vineyard’s neglect during the late 20th century came about, ironically, because of its perceived potential value for eventual urban expansion. This led to its being held more out of speculative considerations than in recognition of its viticultural potential, and by the 1980s, much of the site had returned to scrub. It was then declared a nature preserve, a status that handicapped the efforts of a subsequent wine grower to farm it in what he perceived as a commercially efficient manner. In keeping with biodynamic principles, the Christmanns will spend some years restoring not merely this site’s crumbling terraces, but also its soil, before the first new vines are even planted (with a diverse array of Riesling and Pinot Noir clones and selections). But a portion of the existing vines has already been harvested in the 2018 vintage, and beginning with vintage 2020, Christmann and Catoir will control the entire Einzellage. “I anticipate that we’ll bottle fruit from the existing vines as an Ortsriesling for the first three to five years,” explained Christmann, “but we hope the wine will eventually qualify for an upgrade and Neustadt can take pride in a grand cru.” There is a slightly triste postscript to this development: The Christmanns have elected to relinquish their vine acreage in Deidesheim (which was leased). Their total share in that commune – awkwardly distant from the winery – represented 16 tiny parcels from which (sometimes barely and with difficulty) at most enough Hohenmorgen could be harvested to inform a small cask. Happily, Weingut Mosbacher is taking over the lease. (For a great deal of background on the Christmann estate and on the winegrowing approach of owner-director Steffen Christmann – who is also president of the VDP – consult the introductions to my accounts of its 2014s, 2015s and 2016s.)