2018 Riesling Saar

It was one day shy of mid-September 2018 when Roman Niewodniczanski and his team commenced harvesting his more than 200-acre estate – eight days earlier than their September 22 starting date in 2017. What followed could hardly have presented a greater contrast. Whereas in 2017 they had picked a greatly reduced crop of high-acid grapes in less than a month, in 2018, they went at it for an incredible seven weeks. Relatively high yields and modest acidity in the latter vintage prompted Niewodniczanski to adopt ruthless selectivity. The two things about 2018 that he had been keenest to impart to me when we met the day after harvest began, and reiterated when I returned in late August 2019 to taste the finished wines, were pride that, despite his having taken such a long time to harvest, none of the vineyard-designated wines needed to be labeled for more than 12% alcohol (though, to be precise, some approach 12.5%), and pride that yields of finished wine were nearly identical to those from the frost-crippled 2017 vintage. That was because a major share of what was harvested in 2018 got sold off in bulk rather than vinified and bottled chez Van Volxem, and even much that was picked from old vines in theoretically outstanding locations got relegated to generic bottlings. Regular readers of my reports will realize that I have my stylistic differences with Niewodniczanski and his cellarmaster Dominik Volk when it comes to residually sweet wines, and given the inherent nature of 2018 I was not too surprised – though I was disappointed – that those I tasted most recently seemed to revert to an excessive sweetness and lack of animation that I found substantially overcome in their 2017 collection. But when it comes to dry wines, the vineyard-designated 2018s are as distinctively delicious and impressively complex as I have come to expect.

Several bottlings that I assessed from vintage 2017 were rendered in 2018 as well but inexplicably left off of the lineup that the estate chose to show me: Riesling Schiefer, Riesling Kabinett Rotschiefer, and Wawerner Ritterpfad Riesling Kabinett. (For background on this formidable estate, its perfectionist practices, and its distinctive style, consult the introductions to my reports on its wines from vintages 2014 to 2017.)