2018 Riesling Niersteiner Hipping Grosses Gewächs

While Carolin Gillot and her husband Oliver Spanier recorded their earliest-ever start of harvest when they began picking non-Riesling grapes in their Bodenheim and Oppenheim vineyards on September 5, 2017, that record was smashed in 2018 when they commenced on August 23! Riesling picking began in the first days of September 2018, but Gillot reported having felt under no pressure thanks to a constant stream of balmy days, and it was nearly the end of that month before harvest was completed. The fruit was healthy and stable, and if the vines escaped shutdown, Gillot suggested that this reflects among other viticultural approaches her having mulched the vineyards with straw in recent years to mitigate heat accumulation, inhibit evaporation and otherwise enhance water retention. (I imagine that this would also help control the potentially devastating erosive effects of rain in steep Roten Hang vineyards which, when it does come, increasingly comes as deluges. I have witnessed more than one massive red mud slide on these slopes in recent years.) For all of Gillot’s and Spanier’s precautions, the relative fullness, textural softness, and in some instances simplicity of wines in the lower-price echelons of this estate’s 2018 collection testify to the challenges of that vintage, especially in fast-warming, drought-prone sites. The wines are satisfying, but with one exception significantly less interesting or savory than their vintage 2017 counterparts. Thankfully, the vintage 2018 Grosse Gewächse, on the other hand, are an impressive lot that needn’t fear comparison with any of their predecessors.

Absence of Kabinett in her vintage 2018 roster should by no means be taken as an indication that Gillot has lost interest in that category. She simply, and no doubt wisely, judged that even in the first days of September, must weights and flavor ripeness had already progressed too far on her red soil slopes to achieve wine with the appropriate personality. Thanks in part to the absence of any other sweet 2018 bottlings to assess from Kühling-Gillot – moderate acidity coupled with near-total absence of botrytis having conduced to exclusively dry wine – I found time at long last to revisit this estate’s Pinot Noirs. Unfortunately, not one bottle of their Scheurebe was left by the time I visited. (For background on this estate and a discussion of Oliver Spanier’s cellar approach to Riesling, consult the introductions to my reports on its 2015–2017 collections, as well as to those of sister estate Battenfeld-Spanier.)