2015 Riesling Niersteiner Hipping Grosses Gewächs

Johannes Hasselbach and his equally young right hand Markus Weickert (here since the 2013 harvest) have turned in an impressive 2016 collection that clearly illustrates the virtues – especially for the classic sites of Nackenheim’s and Nierstein’s “Red Slope” – of a season in which an autumn chill extends the harvest window. Granted, the earliest picking at Gunderloch began on September 28, but fortunately nature subsequently applied the brakes. Johannes Hasselbach insisted – albeit, I suspect, reflecting some wishful thinking – that this represents “a return to normal after the exceptionally early harvests of 2014 and 2015” (which were, granted, each early for a very different reason from the other). Like so many young growers, Hasselbach seems enamored with achieving radical dryness, and his ambient yeast population has frequently cooperated. This created no alcohol problems in 2016, but time will tell whether his vineyard management succeeds in keeping Oechsle consistently in check. These red slopes, after all, were famous – like so many of Germany’s traditional top sites – in significant part due to their ability to generate consistently high must weights. (Why the vintage 2015 Gunderloch Grosse Gewächse ended up significantly lower in alcohol though barely higher in residual sugar than the 2016s is an intriguing puzzle. For some theories, consult the general introductions to my coverage of 2015.) Another recent feature that this estate shares with an increasing number of others in Riesling Germany is a renewal of casks – here mostly of 2,000-liter capacity and from Pfalz or Austrian Ybbstal oak – some of which are having a subtle aromatic as well as structural influence on the resulting wines.

In keeping with a long-standing tradition of Fritz Hasselbach’s, a minuscule amount of TBA was picked from 2016. But while the resultant wine could serve as a memorial to this hero of late-20th-century Red Slope viticulture who passed away during the 2016 harvest, his son had not yet decided, when we last communicated, whether the 40 or 50 liters in question would in fact be released as TBA. “The 2015 TBA is so close to perfection,” he suggested of a wine that I reviewed in my previous report, albeit in slightly underwhelming terms, “that the 2016 would stand in its shadow.” And speaking of my reviews of the Gunderloch 2015s, not only did revisiting that TBA compel me to issue an updated review below, but their trio of Grosse Gewächse was so much more impressive when I re-tasted them in late July 2017 that I felt it imperative to also publish new tasting notes on those.

The Gunderloch facilities were almost literally turned upside down when I visited them in the last days of July 2017, as the ongoing construction of a new cellar – which has swallowed up the former garden behind the old tasting room and incorporates a Cold War era bomb shelter – was to be combined with new reception, tasting and office facilities, as well as a thorough renovation and replacement of infrastructure in the manor house, which dates to the turn of the previous century. A wonderful by-product of that renovation, incidentally, has been the rediscovery of an enormous, multipaneled and meticulous 1912 vineyard map that Agnes Hasselbach knew had been stored somewhere by her mother but which no living member of the family had ever seen. Another exciting development at Gunderloch is that the estate’s until now tiny share of Hipping has been supplemented by a steep section planted with vine material from the Saar that was expected to produce its first crop in 2017. (For background on this estate and its recent stylistic evolution under Johannes Hasselbach, consult my reports on its vintage 2014 and 2015 collections.)

On the eve of the 2016 harvest, Fritz Hasselbach, who with his wife Agnes elevated her family’s Nackenheim estate to well-deserved international stardom, lost a long struggle with melanoma. Under his direction, Weingut Gunderloch amassed an amazing track record for both dry and sweet (especially nobly sweet) Riesling and for wines showcasing the steep “Red Slope” along this famous stretch of Rhine, not only in single-vineyard bottlings but also in some of Germany’s finest and best-value generics. Two thousand fifteen was already the third harvest with son Johannes Hasselbach and his young vineyard manager/cellar master Markus Weickert in charge. There have been some subtle but important methodological changes (detailed in the introduction to my report on their 2014s), but prospects are bright for continued excellence. If the 2015s are not on quite the exalted level of many Gunderloch collections over the past quarter century, that might be because we’re looking at one of numerous recent instances where traditionally top riverside Rhine sites were punished precisely by their precocity. “The grapes were ripe by the time the September rains arrived,” explained Johannes Hasselbach, “and I didn’t want to lose much time in harvesting them. Besides,” he added, “I’m happy to have Grosse Gewächse that register barely over 12 percent in alcohol.” That said, the perceived need not to risk letting these grapes hang into October may have carried a small price in depth, although, as a group, this year’s dry Gunderloch Rieslings boast impressive clarity and mineral nuance. “We took a pause then, before harvesting for sweet wines,” related Hasselbach, “during which acids for the most part remained stable while the phenolics improved.” Most of the nobly sweet 2015s, he noted, were picked from the prow of the Rothenberg, where air circulation helped keep botrytis relatively dry and free of outright fungal fuzz. The results, as my notes indicate, are impressively concentrated and persistent if a bit over-laden with sheer sweetness. Hopefully time will bring improved balance and greater precision. “Fermentations were rapid and unproblematic,” Hasselbach reported, “and even the Trockenbeerenauslese fermented well spontaneously without any encouragement.” (Long, cool ferments using cultured yeasts had been significant features of his father’s regimen.)

During my September 2016 visit, a huge new press house and storage area were being erected on the grounds of the family’s former garden, immediately behind their half-timbered office and tasting room (soon to be remodeled). The new facilities will reach right up under vines in the Rothenberg, which is slated to enter the process of wholesale restructuring and replanting known as Flurbereinigung. I don’t yet have a grasp on the timetable for this Flurbereinigung or on how extensive the effects will be for Gunderloch.