2018 Riesling trocken

“And to think,” Helmut Dönnhoff observed, “that my grandmother used to say: ‘As long as there are still leaves on the vines, we are not about to harvest.’ For most of my career, it was still considered a sign of seriousness to be the last grower with grapes left hanging, and it has been hard – almost impossible – for me to fight an inclination to delay picking, especially in 2018, because there was beautiful weather and the grapes were so healthy. I’ve never seen lovelier grapes in all my life. I couldn’t see any reason to terminate this photogenic situation, and I imagined that if we began picking, there was going to be a thunderbolt sent from heaven to punish me.” But with strong encouragement from son (and by now veteran cellarmaster) Cornelius, Dönnhoff senior resisted his aforementioned inclination. And as he admits, “I had already experienced in 2003 that totally healthy grapes can reach 100 Oechsle ... and also that they can lose their peppiness.” Harvest took place over four weeks, ending (with one tiny exception) just past mid-October. And there was no repeat of 2003, in terms of galloping must weights or trepidation. “We could strategize without pressure,” said Dönnhoff senior, “and we knew from one day to the next exactly which parcels we were going to harvest.” Apropos of the rude good health of this vintage’s grapes, Dönnhoff joked with probably little exaggeration that “in 2018 we got barely one bucket’s worth of botrytis berries from the entire estate! I teased the crew: ‘Whoever can bring me nobly shriveled berries will get paid a one-euro bonus for each of them,’ but nobody did. The great challenge of 2018” when it came to vinification and élevage as well as picking, opined Dönnhoff, “was that the wines wouldn’t become too fat,” a challenge that was clearly met and then some. (For much more about this estate and its vineyards, consult my previous reports, both for their extended introductions and for descriptions of the estate’s vineyards sprinkled throughout my tasting notes.)

“And to think,” Helmut Dönnhoff observed, “that my grandmother used to say: ‘As long as there are still leaves on the vines, we are not about to harvest.’ For most of my career, it was still considered a sign of seriousness to be the last grower with grapes left hanging, and it has been hard – almost impossible – for me to fight an inclination to delay picking, especially in 2018, because there was beautiful weather and the grapes were so healthy. I’ve never seen lovelier grapes in all my life. I couldn’t see any reason to terminate this photogenic situation, and I imagined that if we began picking, there was going to be a thunderbolt sent from heaven to punish me.” But with strong encouragement from son (and by now veteran cellarmaster) Cornelius, Dönnhoff senior resisted his aforementioned inclination. And as he admits, “I had already experienced in 2003 that totally healthy grapes can reach 100 Oechsle ... and also that they can lose their peppiness.” Harvest took place over four weeks, ending (with one tiny exception) just past mid-October. And there was no repeat of 2003, in terms of galloping must weights or trepidation. “We could strategize without pressure,” said Dönnhoff senior, “and we knew from one day to the next exactly which parcels we were going to harvest.” Apropos of the rude good health of this vintage’s grapes, Dönnhoff joked with probably little exaggeration that “in 2018 we got barely one bucket’s worth of botrytis berries from the entire estate! I teased the crew: ‘Whoever can bring me nobly shriveled berries will get paid a one-euro bonus for each of them,’ but nobody did. The great challenge of 2018” when it came to vinification and élevage as well as picking, opined Dönnhoff, “was that the wines wouldn’t become too fat,” a challenge that was clearly met and then some. (For much more about this estate and its vineyards, consult my previous reports, both for their extended introductions and for descriptions of the estate’s vineyards sprinkled throughout my tasting notes.)