2017 Riesling Kallstadter Saumagen Spätlese trocken R

“We had to count ourselves really lucky in 2017,” observed Dominik Sona, “given that unlike most areas, we suffered neither frost nor hail. But the crop was small due to a severe selection, as well as the dry, hot conditions for much of the summer. The rain in September was unfortunate, but does not seem to have been terribly harmful. The wines are a lot juicier than I had anticipated. They’re fairly rich in alcohol – after all, there was enough water to keep the vines producing sugar – but on the whole I’m happy.” Sona perceives the vintage as “a combination of 2015 and 2016,” though I find much more contrast than resemblance to the latter. Picking began on September 12 and was over on October 6, under conditions that demonstrate the extent to which local late summer and early autumn conditions varied within the Pfalz. Kallstadt received more rain than did vineyards further south; what’s more, the conditions that render Saumagen a heat trap also make it slightly slower to dry off. “The harvest was hectic, but it would not have done to try prolonging it,” reported Sona, “because there had simply been too much September rain and things were too wet. It was hard work selecting, and a lot of fruit ended up on the ground, but it was essential to systematically eliminate any botrytis.” And given the elevated alcohol in this year’s finished results, I shudder to think what it would have been had any significant number of shriveled berries been included. Bottling, too, took place for the 2017s within an unusually short period of time, the first Pinot Blanc in early June and the Rieslings by the end of July. “The wines were showing a good sense of development,” observed Sona, “and at the same time there’s no denying we were mindful of the impending early 2018 harvest and wanted to avoid any conflicts of interest between bottling and picking such as we have already experienced in some recent years.”

The relatively modest demand for residually sweet Koehler-Ruprecht Riesling, but more importantly Sona and Franziska Schmitt’s assessment of incoming fruit, led them to focus entirely on dry wines from 2017. They had not decided as of my mid-November 2018 visit whether one batch of Saumagen that did not ferment to legal dryness would be released as Saumagen Spätlese Halbtrocken, and for that reason – as well as because it was showing a slightly muted and rather diffuse personality – I have not published a tasting note on it at this time. Incidentally, I re-tasted on this occasion most of the dry Rieslings from vintage 2016 – it would have been hard to resist the offer – and found them performing on the exalted level already captured (hopefully!) by my earlier tasting notes.

Sona made an observation during my most recent visit that is interesting in connection with the topic of cask renewal, as well as in view of the fact that, unlike nearly all other top Pfalz estates, Koehler-Ruprecht never went through a late-20th-century phase during which casks were jettisoned in favor of stainless steel. “We’re introducing new 600- and 300-liter ovals,” Sona explained, “but we’ve found that sometimes even after five years, they generate too much oak flavor to be suitable for our Rieslings.” That is one reason why there has for several years now been a Chardonnay cuvée (called simply “Chardonnay Spätlese Trocken”) designed to break in those casks, which are made by both German and Austrian barrel-makers. For the casks that Koehler-Ruprecht procures from local cooper Michael Gies – who only crafts ones of 600-liter or greater capacity – the wood is weathered for five or more years on the Donnersberg (as further explained in my review of Mosbacher’s 2017 Forster Pechstein Grosses Gewächs). “I think Gies could age those oak planks for 10 years and it wouldn’t be too long,” opined Sona. (For a great deal of detail about this estate and its eventful recent history, consult the introductions to my past reports, especially the one focused on its 2014s.)