2020 Rieslin Der Kanzemerg feinherb

Tasting Anna Reimann’s fourth and fifth vintage collections alongside one another, I have the impression that with the fifth, namely 2020, she has reached a new level of mastery but also been presented with conditions ideally suited to the sort of brightness, levity and clarity that she hopes will inform a vinous Saar calling card to the outside world. “2020 is at least a very good year,“ she opined modestly when I asked her a couple of months after harvest, adding, “maybe even outstanding. We have to wait to see about that.” My own subsequent verdict is in. For Reimann, it’s her best yet. “With the proper approach – repeated pickings, hang time, patience, pairing the right vineyard with the right [sort of] wine – we were able to tap the full potential of our resources [aus dem Vollen schöpfen],” she concluded, “and everything was possible, from delicate Kabinett through dense dry wines to rich Auslese.” The lighter wines correspond to mid-September pickings, while the fuller dry wines, but also Spätlese and Auslese, reflect picking after a nearly two-week pause during the autumn rainy spell. Perhaps as important as the quality of the wines, yields were for the first time on an order of magnitude with which Reimann can conceive of succeeding commercially in the long run. That her vineyard sources have stabilized seems all for the best given the success her 2020s and her diverse range of terroirs from five communes.

While harvest here in 2019 began early, much of it took place in October and demanded laborious selection to eliminate unwanted botrytis. The results are frequently rich and dense but lacking the clarity or lift that characterize her 2020s as a group (and her most successful wines from 2018 as well). Recently planted vines will soon enlarge the Reimanns’ presently minuscule share of the famed Altenberg that serves as the literal backdrop for this estate (a 1740 edifice built by previous ecclesiastical vineholders and fabulously restored by Reimann’s father). But her wines, like those reflecting recent expansion at the Lochs’ Weinhof Herrenberg, demonstrate that the Kanzemer Sonnenberg, with an entirely different exposure overlooking the Saar canal, harbors outstanding potential of its own.

Note that most Cantzheim wines are labeled with a prominent nickname preceded by a definite article, but when these nicknames are redundant – for example, a Saarburger Fuchs labeled additionally as “Der Fuchs” – I have not included them as part of a wine’s name. And speaking of Saarburger Fuchs, I see that I have somehow neglected in previous reports to at least point out the location of this prominent site in the Cantzheim portfolio. It overlooks the Saar just upstream from Schonfels and just downstream from the town of Saarburg itself. I have elected to review the wines below in the order that Reimann followed in presenting them: First the generics, then the “village level” bottlings, and then the single-vineyard ones. This progression has become rather fashionable since the VDP began placing outsized emphasis on a “pyramidic” classification of wines, and in this instance, I did not resist, though it meant that wines of hidden or subtle sweetness precede some that are analytically trocken. For time reasons, and because I was not very impressed with Reimann’s approach in vintage 2018 and before, I did not taste any of her more recent Pinot Blancs, but I hope to catch up with some on a future occasion. (For background on this young estate and its rapid growth, consult the introduction to my coverage of its inaugural 2016 as well as subsequent vintages.)