2016 Riesling Ungsteiner Terra Rossa trocken

As noted in the general introduction to this report, in 2016 Jan Eymael began picking Riesling just past the middle of September, but ended up not harvesting for his Grosse Gewächse until a full month later. Happily, though, the eventual alcohol levels of this vintage’s dry Rieslings are half a percentage below those of 2015. Eymael reports having lost significant acidity to the torrid August and September 2016 conditions, but the wines display an animation and primary juiciness that belies their analyses and helps compensate for their relative bulk. After a further pause of more than a month, on November 24 Scheurebe was harvested for both an Auslese and a Beerenauslese of sensational complexity and sensuality even by founder Karl Fuhrmann’s long-established high performance standards with that grape (unequaled save by those of Hans-Günter Schwarz during his time at Müller-Catoir). Despite the battle with peronospora, flowering here was largely undisturbed and the eventual yields slightly above long-term norms, a rare occurrence for 2016. (In a very slightly abbreviated tasting session with Doris Fuhrmann – who continues to run the business end of her family’s estate – I omitted sampling this vintage’s Roter Riesling or its latest wooded Riesling and Scheurebe. For more background on this estate, consult the introductions to my reviews of its 2014s and 2015s.)