2017 Riesling feinherb

Florian Fauth’s vineyards lay at the epicenter of a vintage 2017 tragedy: the savaging of Westhofen – which April frost had left untouched – by late August hail. The resulting crop loss amounted to around half overall, but was much higher in the Morstein vineyard that normally dominates Fauth’s upper-echelon bottlings. “The one stroke of luck,” he reported, “is that it was warm and breezy in the week following the hailstorm, so the damaged grapes managed to dry.” Even so, he added, “I’ve never experienced such a disturbing [aufregende] harvest. In some clusters, one side was completely destroyed while the other harbored healthy, intact grapes.” But surgical precision was required to salvage the small amount of thoroughly ripe Morstein fruit that remained unscathed, and even after harvesting so little, Fauth sold off some of it as juice rather than risk being left with wine that did not meet his standards. Incidentally, he is inclined to attribute the surprisingly high extract levels in 2017 – which, like me, he observes even from vineyards that escaped both frost and hail – to the influence of late August and early September rain. (For background on Fauth and his family’s estate, consult the introduction to my account of his 2014s.)