2017 Riesling Basalt

The Odinstal estate had been planted for only a quarter of a century when in 1828 the Bavarian government classified the Mittelhaardt’s vineyards for tax purposes, so the absence of a track record might explain its having been assessed in the lower echelons. On the other hand, one wonders whether this site tucked high into the hills above Wachenheim and surrounded by woods can really have been capable of rendering exciting wines until our era of global warming and until the 2004 arrival of biodynamic devotee and Hans-Günther Schwarz protégé Andreas Schumann. Luckily for Schumann, he found mature vines from sensibly chosen traditional Pfalz clones with which to work. He is proud to pursue Schwarz’s well-known regimen of “activism in the vineyard, minimalism in the cellar” to a degree that even its author had never contemplated. Considering losses to frost, hail, and two virtually rainless summers, Schumann expressed amazement that Odinstal ended up with aggregate yields in 2018 equal to – and in 2017 not that far off from – long-term average. This may well be a testimony to how vineyards thrive under a biodynamic regimen carried out by people who seem attuned to every nuance of their vines’ reactions to circumstances. “Our whole orientation is toward achieving a full, healthy crop each year,” explained Schumann, “and if our vines need attention, it’s a matter of prophylactic or medicinal treatment, the need for which isn’t surprising. After all, the vine is a very degenerate plant: there are no fertile seeds, there is no crop rotation, and there is constant genetic accident [Zufall]. When it comes to yields,” Schumann insisted, “lower doesn’t necessary mean better. That’s a false generalization. It’s a question of what the vine can adequately bear in a given spot. There are places on this property where our vines can yield top quality at well over 50 hectoliters per hectare, and then there are spots where I dare not try to exceed 20.” It probably won’t surprise readers to learn that on the whole, grapes here come in at modest must weights, translating into wines of correspondingly moderate alcohol.

The consequent passivity practiced in Odinstal’s cellar means that especially in years with cold winters, many wines leave behind a bit of residual sugar, though they usually still fall within the legal parameters of Trockenheit and the estate makes nothing of this in its marketing. “Despite that bit of sugar,” noted Schumann, “our wines nearly always undergo complete malolactic transformation” – naturally without anything being done to encourage that, either. “This is why we like to work with the grape tannins to supply structure,” he added by way of accounting for fermentations that routinely involve a measure of extended skin contact, sometimes through maceration, more often by including whole clusters along with their stems in the ferment. Readers will doubtless also not be surprised, after what I have written thus far, to learn that the estate is very sparing in its utilization of sulfur at bottling, which is also the sole occasion on which any of its wines see a filter (and some never do).

Schumann pointed out that while 2017 brought harvest dates that would have been unthinkable in this location until the 21st century, these correspond with an advance of the vine’s entire cycle, so that hang time per se is not much affected, and “we place great emphasis on harvesting only at the point when the vines tell us they’re done with their work for the year. We bottled our 2017s on September 6, 2018,” he recounted, “and on the 17th we began picking.” True, in 2017 the last Riesling was not brought in until nearly the middle of October, but that too represented record-breaking precocity at this address. As explained in the introduction to my previous report on these wines – which readers should consult for further historical, viticultural and geological information, including details of Schumann’s project with unpruned vines – this estate adjoins the dramatic basalt volcanic cone known as the Pechsteinkopf, and in addition features areas where the soil is dominated by sandstone or by fossiliferous limestone. Many Odinstal wines showcase (or are even labeled for) one of those three geological formations.