2018 Riesling Bacharacher Kloster Fürstental Kabinett feinherb

Randolf Kauer, viticultural expert though he is (he holds a chair on the Geisenheim faculty), expressed as much surprise as most winegrowers at how much juice there was in grapes from 2018 despite its hot, dry summer. But he thinks that relatively high acidity – often, amazingly, exceeding that of 2017 – and modest must weights can be at least partly explained by the vines having sporadically shut down. “In soils that can hold more water than ours, it’s a different matter,” he opined. “In such places there was greater danger of insufficient acidity and too-high must weight.” That having been said, there is still some mystery, noted Kauer, surrounding the fact that many of his wines and ones from elsewhere in the Mittelrhein gained acidity going from must to finished product. Generation of succinic acid during fermentation may have played a role. “But I think it’s likely on account of such high ratios of tartaric acid that tartrate crystals precipitated out within the grapes,” explained Kauer, “and then dissolved after alcohol began forming.” The efficacious acidity possessed by most of the Kauers’ 2018s encouraged them to let their legally dry wines – which represent the majority as well as the strength of the collection – finish fermenting with relatively high (6.5–8 grams) residual sugar. The results are very satisfying.

Weingut Kauer’s first day of the 2018 harvest, September 14, both set a new record for precocity and was the first absent founders Randolf and Martina Kauer, who were still away on a holiday that had been booked long before. Even given recent trends, they couldn’t envision a September 14 commencement of picking. That day was devoted to Pinot Noir (with more than competent daughter Anne in charge) – but Riesling began coming in only a week later. Continued balmy and breezy weather then encouraged the Kauers to slow their pace, and a majority of their top sites were only picked in the last days of September – which in many parcels still represented a record-early harvest date – and the first half of October, with a few upper-elevation locations not getting picked until October 22. Given the abundance and health of the 2018 crop, grapes were left hanging in hope of the estate’s first-ever Eiswein, but that attempt was abandoned on December 30 and an Auslese harvested from those vines instead. (For more about this estate, consult especially the introductions to my accounts of its vintage 2014, 2015 and 2017 wines.)