2016 Riesling Rüdesheimer Berg Rottland

Cellarmaster Markus Lundén acknowledges that he was quite confounded by the almost continual rain of spring and early summer 2016, which theoretically demanded giving prophylactic attention simultaneously to nearly the entire vine surface area and left him asking himself “Where should I start, and how am I going to manage this? And then all at once there was too much heat and sunshine,” he notes, adding that he and the rest of the team here – notably Theresa Breuer and Hermann Schmoranz – consider the effects of direct sun on Riesling grapes especially unwelcome. But manage they did, once again delivering a fine collection, albeit with 25-30% less wine than in an average recent year. Losses were greater in Rüdesheim, but although Lundén maintains that the vines in Rauenthal better withstood the whiplash of vintage 2016 weather, I give this year’s Rüdesheim bottlings the overall qualitative edge. The reserved, understated, contemplative character often exhibited by Breuer Rieslings seems an ideal fit for the 2016 vintage, where those virtues are accompanied by alcoholic levity and mouthwatering mineral nuance, but also generous juiciness of ripe fruit and ample animation (even at acid levels a gram or more less than those of the corresponding 2015s).

I noted in my last report the decision, beginning with vintage 2013, to systematically hold back the release of Breuer Berg Roseneck “for as long as five years.” Breuer and her team are now talking as though the delay will in fact be at least five years, with the wines not necessarily being released in chronological order. What’s more, she says “if I could afford to I would do this with all four of our top wines.” I am all for reversing the widespread late 20th century trend toward earlier release of fine wines – which was often coupled with a truncation of élevage – and have thus been delighted to report on the many instances where such a reversal has been accomplished, which ranges from individual growers holding back specific wines to action on a broad front such as the decision by Austria’s Traditionsweingüter not to release any wines labeled for “Erste Lagen” before the first September after harvest. But insofar as late release reflects a wine being held-back in bottle rather than one subjected to longer élevage, this means depriving consumers of a chance to chart that wine’s early evolution. And in the particular case of Breuer Berg Roseneck, one has only to revisit my review of the last Roseneck I was permitted to taste alongside its contemporaneous siblings, namely the 2014, to recognize what an incredible and uniquely delicious experience of young Roseneck will now be but a memory for all of us except the decision-makers at Weingut Georg Breue. Roseneck presented itself as a candidate for late release less due to its inherent character than to there being significantly less of it than there is of Breuer’s three other crus. (For extensive background on this estate, consult the introduction to my reports on their 2014 and 2015 vintage Rieslings.)