2022 Riesling Red Stone

The Gunderloch estate and the wines of the Red Slope, especially those of the Rothenberg, are almost synonymous. The estate was founded by banker Carl Gunderloch in 1890, and his direct descendant Johannes Hasselbach is the sixth generation of the family to run the estate. Hasselbach started working alongside his father in 2012 and took over fully in 2016. In August 2020, Heiner Maleton, an experienced and sensitive winemaker, joined and is now at Hasselbach’s side, a key step that enabled Hasselbach’s mother, Agnes, to finally retire. She had still been instrumental in the running of the estate. For Hasselbach, 2022 felt like a reset of sorts. He initially studied business and did not come directly to wine but shouldered responsibility for the estate after his father Fritz’s untimely passing in 2016. When Hasselbach first started, he experimented a lot and was given rein to do so and continued. “This was my way of grappling with my heritage,” he says. In the process, he realized that the old cellar was a significant factor in the wine style. So, he started constructing the neighboring property to have more space without losing the old cellar – “the cradle of the wine,” in his words. This process was finished in 2022; organic certification was also completed. The new packaging will come in with the 2022 vintage release, and Hasselbach feels he can redouble his focus: “Now I have possibilities to make Sekt and focus on the vineyard.” After a decade at the estate, he says, “I am now where we wanted to be.” He notes that his father still had a “more technical approach,” and he is more hands-off but also shares that he is working with different, riper fruit. “Not much has actually changed, but we now have a little more courage. This is an old estate with a long history, but we have to evolve because when nature changes, so do the wines.” Hasselbach is adamant that “the step to organics was an important one, but not the last one.” His decision to convert to organic farming was not unequivocal. He is deeply concerned about the use of copper, for instance. Solar-charged drones bring out biodynamic tea preparations in the vineyards without ever compacting the soil. There are now solar panels on the roof, and the first Rothenberg honey was harvested – Hasselbach notes that there is a lot of work – “but happier work.” The Estate Riesling vom Roten Schiefer is fermented in stainless steel after settling with relatively clear juice. Everything above, from the village onwards, gets skin contact “so that skin and fruit can engage with each other.” The grapes are harvested, crushed very slightly and spend two to three days macerating in a stainless-steel tank. They are then pressed lightly, and the top wines go to fermentation unclarified – the rest with some slight cloudiness. Yeast cultures or pieds de cuve are started in glass balloons in the vineyard to ensure that vineyard yeast and cellar yeasts influence the wine. Hasselbach believes that this also is part of ‘terroir’. Since cloudy juice is nutrient-rich, these native ferments are successful. He uses stainless steel, Halbstück (600 liters) and Stück (1,200 liters), with a steady increase in the 600-liter barrels. He emphasizes that there are no additions to the wine apart from sulfur dioxide. The wines stay on their gross lees until the following summer, which Hasselbach believes helps integrate the phenolics from skin contact. The wines have a distinct phenolic impression and saltiness. I feel Hasselbach and Maleton are hitting their stride. The site expression achieved in the Fenchelberg, this year’s auction wine, and Rothenberg shows the direction of travel.