2015 Riesling Winkeler Hasensprung Kabinett trocken

I seem not to be the only critic or Riesling lover for whom this dozen-hectare estate, named for its most prominent Einzellage, has been flying under the radar. But every indication is that veteran Gerhard “Gerd” Gross, a treasure-trove of lore and insights who got incredibly lucky in his earliest vineyard acquisitions but spent decades gradually building up the family’s holdings, has long been turning out classic Rheingau Rieslings. “I got to know these vineyards through my ass,” he explained, by sitting atop a plow pulled by a winch, “and that’s how you really come to understand your terroir.” Now that son Johannes – several years on from his Geisenheim matriculation – has taken the lead, it’s clear that an already admirable lineup is only going to get better. Touring the slopes of Johannisberg and Winkel with young Gross is at once inspiring and depressing, given the stark contrast of his family’s impeccably tended vines in greened-between rows and sustainably maintained soils with the often disreputable state of those belonging to several famous neighbors. For replanting, the Grosses are employing diverse, conscientiously chosen clones as well as massal selections.

To call the Goldatzel portfolio “classic Rheingau” implies for me a dominance of dry or nearly-dry Rieslings understated in their complexity but youthfully bright and focused. It also implies “sweet” wines that are only judiciously and entirely supportively so. A conscious obligation to those classical virtues is palpable at this address. “I may have taken over in the cellar,” said Johannes Gross with self-effacement all too rare among young vintners, “but the style developed by my father will remain.” The younger Gross doesn’t need to be told just how critical for quality is a cautious, surgical approach to canopy management and leaf removal. His savvy observation: “When you walk a row of vines that’s been intensively manicured and at first it looks as though not a single leaf has been removed, that’s when you know the job’s been done right.” Other significant qualitative factors here include composting according to a finely honed family recipe and regimen; 100 percent hand-harvesting, gravity flow in the cellar, and free-wheeling (though not always spontaneous) fermentations that frequently last into the New Year and, if they come to rest with a dozen or so grams of residual sugar, aren’t wrestled down into legal Trockenheit but instead labeled feinherb and relished as is. (Such wines typically make up more than a third of production.) “We don’t employ any pre-fermentative skin contact,” explained Johannes Gross, “because we want clear, juicy wines free of any aggressive phenols.” The Grosses favor traditional large casks – recent replacements have utilized tonneliers and wood from both Germany and Austria – although a share of their production ferments in tank. Not being members of the VDP, they are free to label as “Kabinett” their unchaptalized, lower-alcohol dry Rieslings, a category on which they place significant emphasis; nor are they compelled to substitute capital letters, geological terms or fantasy names for those of vineyards on their labels. All of the wines are closed with screw caps, an approach that often traps considerable dissolved CO2, and which I occasionally suspected of engendering some unnecessary youthful brittleness.

Picking in 2015 began in the last week of September with Geisenheimer Kläuserweg. “The grapes simply tasted ripe, and we weren’t looking to achieve any less acidity,” observed Johannes Gross. He might have added that he ended up with 13 percent alcohol. Winkel vineyards were next up, but harvest in the top Johannisberg sites extended until mid-November. (And as promising as their 2015s are, the Grosses’ 2016s are finer.)