2018 Riesling Gray Slate feinherb

Ernst Loosen and Bernhard Schug (a.k.a. “Erni & Berni”) officially began picking on September 10, 2018 – a week or more before the already record-setting early starting dates logged by most of their Mosel colleagues. Schug qualifies that: It was really September 15 before anything serious happened with Riesling (or, for that matter, Pinot Blanc), but this still put him and Loosen ahead of the pack. In the drier spots along their stretch of the Mosel, they had brought in water by tank in midsummer to keep young vines from shutting down. That, along with localized rains and this mega-estate’s predominance of old, deeply rooted vines, meant that ripening had been almost universally turbocharged. Yet not one dry Dr. Loosen 2018 exceeds 12.5% alcohol, a credit, surely, to viticultural practices throughout the year, but also specifically to relatively early picking dates. “If we hadn’t begun that early,” added Loosen, “we also wouldn’t have been able to produce any genuine Kabinett.” Harvest was completed by around October 20, which still allowed ample time for botrytis selections, despite levels of botrytis having been low – low, that is, when taken purely on a percentage basis. “And we were certainly not about to wait in hope that more botrytis would develop,” noted Schug. “This year’s Auslesen reflect our current philosophy that when botrytis – good botrytis – is present, better to direct it to Beerenauslese and TBA. I don’t want an Auslese that tastes like Beerenauslese. And in keeping with this policy and the overall generosity of the vintage, we were able to produce a significant amount of Beerenauslese and Trockenbeerenauslese.” Schug wasn’t ready to show me wines in those latter categories, but he noted that for the first time, he rendered some of the TBA in cask, more specifically both in new barriques and in one instance in fuder. “Because we had so much thickly rich, ennobled material,” he explained, “we could afford to take that risk,” and so far, he is delighted with the results.

In 2018, the Loosen portfolio expanded to encompass ten Grosse Gewächse. One of the three new entries is Bernkasteler Johannisbrünnchen, an official Einzellage from which a long-time name for the Loosen estate, “Johannishof,” is derived, and about which I wrote at length when introducing the Loosen vintage 2017 collection. That was before the decision had been made to designate this bottling as Grosses Gewächs, in which capacity it will be given 18 months in cask and only released close to two years after harvest. The other two new Grosses Gewächs entries issue from Lösnicher Försterlay and Kinheimer Rosenberg. “We have always had Försterlay,” explained Loosen, “and we always had Kinheimer Rosenberg as well. Formerly, their fruit went into the ‘Rotschiefer’ and ‘Blauschiefer’ [cuvées, respectively], but we already had those sites registered with the VDP as ‘Grosse Lagen.’ So last year I told Berni, ‘Look, let’s select a single cask of each for GG, because if they’re GG sites then we ought to make a GG out of them.’” One especially important merchant client of Loosen’s was begging him for an exclusive, so the entire fuder of 2018 Försterlay will (alas!) end up having a single outlet, while the Rosenberg will be in general distribution. Loosen’s registrations in 2019 of the cadaster site names “Abtsberg” (within Graacher Himmelreich) and “Im Laychen” (within Wehlener Sonnenuhr) signal the likelihood that yet more additions to the Loosen roster of Grosse Gewächse lie in the near future. (I wrote about the Abtsberg site at some length in reviewing the Loosen vintage 2016 wine that was labeled simply “Graacher Riesling trocken.”)

Those lots destined for release as “Grosses Gewächs Reserve” or “Grosses Gewächs Hommage” – which, as I explained in my previous report, henceforth include the entirety of dry Erdener Prälat – will spend 2–3 years and 3–4 years in cask, respectively, then one or more additional years in bottle, and only be made available for professional tasting near the time of their release. Loosen is leaning in the direction of even later release onto the market for his Reserve bottlings than he had originally envisioned, so although I reviewed the vintage 2014 Reserves concurrent with my report on the bulk of his vintage 2016 releases, the vintage 2015 Grosses Gewächs Reserves are reviewed only now in this report based on September 2019 tasting, and were only released in 2020. One last wine new to the Loosen lineup that debuted with vintage 2017 is a Graacher Himmelreich “Tradition” (reviewed below) featuring low alcohol, hidden sweetness and extended cask maturation. Apropos of the role of time, it should be noted that, just as Loosen keeps bit by bit dialing back residual sugar in his Kabinetts, he’s also gradually moving back their bottling dates, which with vintage 2018 did not begin until May. The vintage 2018 Loosen collection builds on an uncommonly fine set of generic bottlings, some of which were not bottled until late summer 2019 after having seen time in cask. The village-level Graacher as well as all of the Grosse Gewächse were only bottled after the 2019 harvest, hence after my visit to taste them. (For much more about this renowned estate, consult the introductions to my accounts focused on vintages 2014–2017, the last of which includes details concerning recent expansions as well as portfolio and labeling changes.)