2016 Riesling Scharzhofberger Kabinett

Due to disruptions arising from the mid-2016 death of longtime Kesselstatt proprietor-director Annegret Reh (about which I wrote in the introduction to my report on 2015 along the Mosel), I missed out on tasting this estate’s 2015s. Long-time cellarmaster Wolfgang Mertes also had his hands full meeting the meteorological challenges of 2016 as well as with construction of the estate’s spacious new, three-tier (hence, gravity-fed) winemaking facilities, completed just in time to receive the crop. “The fact that we no longer have to pump the must is going to make a big positive difference,” averred Mertes, and his 2016 collection is highly impressive even discounting the obstacles thrown in its way by Mother Nature. Kesselstatt’s monopole Josephshof in Graach was at the epicenter of that sector’s savage May 2016 hail, and peronospora plagued many of the estate’s vineyards, especially those in the Saar. Even given what was therefore one of the estate’s shortest crops in the past several decades, serious picking still did not begin at any of the far-flung Kesselstatt locations until nearly mid-October. And the wait clearly didn’t result in exaggerated must weights. Instead, modest Oechsle levels played into Mertes’ hand in what he clearly sees as an ongoing effort to bring greater elegance and animation into the estate’s dry wines. The four Grosse Gewächse (of which I did not taste the precious Josephshöfer) weigh in between 11.9% and 12.2% alcohol. But it was not easy this year to get wines to spontaneously ferment to legal dryness, and Mertes is no doubt correct in his assumption that this is explained not just by cold late fall and early winter temperatures but also by the new, almost antiseptically clean cellar that will need time to build a strong ambient yeast population. Even so, he reported that, with patience, he felt it necessary to add yeasts to only a few recalcitrant batches. Acid levels in this year’s musts were moderate, though predominantly tartaric. The slow fermentations and extensive tartrate precipitation left numerous wines at levels that on paper I would suspect of being insufficient for classic Mosel Riesling. But in this instance that merely demonstrates how little one can predict about the taste of wine from its analysis, because there is nearly consistent animation and juiciness, brightness and clarity to this year’s Kesselstatt collection.

I can’t resist mentioning – and find it intriguing – that critical opinions about this collection are especially divided. At least one prominent German journal damned it with what strikes me as inexplicably faint praise. I find it the most consistently satisfying I’ve ever tasted at this address – which does not, however, mean that I can share the opinion reflected in extremely high scores doled out by others among my colleagues. (To reiterate, though, I unfortunately missed out on tasting Kesselstatt’s 2015s. For more on the recent evolution of this estate – which, as a reminder, I incorporate into this report rather than that on the Mosel proper because the Kesselstatt winery is located along the Ruwer – consult the introduction that accompanies my account of their 2014s.)