2017 Riesling Gray Slate feinherb

With crop loss of less than a third vis-à-vis recent averages, this estate came away relatively lucky from the April 2017 frost, August hail (in Graach) and September precipitation. Loosen and Schug (a.k.a. “Erni and Berni”) began picking in the third week of September (for Kabinett) but only finished at the end of October, just a week earlier than they did in 2016. The Bernkastel-Wehlen-Graach sector in particular seems to have benefited from a relative absence of precipitation during the second half of September. Schug averred that it’s “the special liveliness [Lebendigkeit] of the acidity that constitutes this vintage’s most attractive feature.” But at the dry end of the flavor spectrum – and that sector of the Loosen portfolio keeps growing in terms of both number of bottlings and total share – acid levels in 2017, ranging from 7 to 7.5 grams per liter, are analytically modest and not far off from recent averages. “Our wines routinely lose 1.5–2 grams of acidity in the élevage,” explained Schug, “and with musts of 10 grams or more were generally lightly deacidified.” The liveliness of which he spoke is usually present, regardless of what the analysis shows. But it is in the realm of residual sweetness, where analytically higher acidity is welcomed and élevage generally shorter, that the vintage 2017 Loosen collection really shines. I found the generic bottlings (especially the Pinot Blanc and the négociant bottling “Dr. L” Riesling) and lower-priced dry wines somewhat weak by estate standards, which might be reflective of the selectivity required to showcase distinctive vintage 2017 virtues, a selectivity that could perhaps not be afforded wines destined to sell at lower prices. (Of course, the Loosen Kabinetts are also inexpensive, but that’s simply because – much to Erni Loosen’s entirely justifiable chagrin – they are ludicrously underpriced, a legacy of that Prädikat’s misbegotten origins in the 1971 German Wine Law and subsequent abuse.)

A couple of significant changes took place in the Loosen lineup with this vintage. First, there is no longer a “regular” Erdener Prälat Grosses Gewächs; instead, all of the dry wine from that site will be given either two or three years’ élevage, for release as “Grosses Gewächs Reserve” or “Hommage,” respectively. Second, there is a new vineyard-designated bottling from the Bernkasteler Johannisbrünnchen, an Einzellage whose name will be unfamiliar to even many avid Mosel enthusiasts, yet one that has almost certainly informed wines they have tasted. In my four decades of tasting Mosel Riesling, I could scarcely recall a wine labeled for this site – growers almost universally utilize the Grosslage name “Badstube” instead. So of course I had to ask, “Why?” And thereby hangs a tale worth recounting to illustrate the knots into which the classification-obsessed VDP ties itself. A Loosen Graacher Riesling trocken (100% Himmelreich) debuted in 2014 in response to the VDP’s desire to see widespread representation of the level of their classificatory pyramid known as Ortswein, i.e., village-level wine. (For background on that Graacher’s precise source and its élevage, consult my review of its vintage 2016 installment.) Loosen then sought to fill the sizable price gap between Ortswein and Grosses Gewächs. But a wine labeled “Badstube” couldn’t serve that function, because the Joh. Jos. Prüm estate had successfully lobbied for Badstube to become a VDP-Grosse Lage – an understandable undertaking given the superb quality of Prüm Badstube bottlings – which means that a dry Riesling labeled “Badstube” is perforce a Grosses Gewächs. (Prüm, incidentally, bottles neither Grosse Gewächse nor Ortsweine.) So now Loosen’s Bernkasteler Johannisbrünnchen trocken will become officially a “VDP-Erste Lage” wine – introducing a new classificatory level for the Mosel. This despite Johannisbrünnchen’s lying within the “Grosse Lage” (also Grosslage!) Badstube and the VDP professing fealty to the dictum: “The narrower the place of origin, the higher the [implied] quality”!

Dry Loosen wines other than the generics were bottled only after the 2018 harvest and I had no chance to taste them subsequently. (The enormous number of vintage 2018 bottlings – augmented by the 2015 Reserve Grosse Gewächse – left me no time to revisit 2017s alongside.) This is one of many addresses at which the top dry wines are currently marked by an influx of new barrels, but with one exception, I found the oak effects subtle and not at all disturbing. What’s more, I anticipate them being yet more discreet in the bottled final blends. I would normally review the contemporaneous Grosses Gewächs Reserve releases, but Loosen deferred presentation of the vintage 2015 Reserves, and I’ll include notes on those alongside my notes on the Loosen vintage 2018 collection. At that time, I’ll also offer my initial impression of a Loosen Grosses Gewächs “Hommage,” given a third year in cask and multiple years in bottle prior to release. Not tasted from 2017 were a Beerenauslese cuvée and a Prälat Trockenbeerenauslese. (For much more about this renowned estate, consult the introductions to my accounts focused on vintages 2014, 2015 and 2016.)