2015 Riesling Hochheimer Hölle Auslese

Günter Künstler, with boots on, was headed back to join his picking crew when I visited here in the third week of September 2015, and harvest was finished by the end of the first week of October. Botrytis and prematurely elevated must weights are nowadays a routine threat in Hochheim’s celebrated sites along the Main River, and although the chill that set in soon after 2015’s September rain warded off botrytis, even early-picked wines at this address displayed high must weights and consequent alcohol. No doubt that is partly on account of the smaller clusters and lower overall yield than in 2014 that Künstler reports. Certainly the high accompanying acidity was welcome, but Künstler’s impressive 2014s offer greater animation and intrigue, not to mention superior balance. Hochheim’s sites strike me as among those in the Rheingau where under currently prevailing climatic conditions, vintages that are cooler and later-ripening than normal will best reveal the complexity, restraint and elegance that made their reputations. It was a pleasant shock, then, to experience Künstler’s Rüdesheim bottlings, which were not picked until near the end of September yet weighed in at 1.5-2 percent lower alcohol than their Hochheim counterparts.

Künstler continues to resist the VDP’s insistence on eradicating the “Kabinett trocken” designation and eliminating site designations for “lesser” dry wines. I’ll be interested to see what comes of his opposition in the face of what purported to be a final deadline for growers to conform. His conversion to screw cap, incidentally, is virtually complete, with just one-third of the Grosses Gewächs bottles (though none that I tasted) remaining under natural cork. (For information on this estate, its vineyards, and some important recent changes in holdings and personnel, consult the introduction to my account of its 2014s.)