2017 Riesling Kabinett S

Max von Kunow reported very little damage from the April 2017 frost, other than in a few of his lower-elevation or especially warm sites (Kanzemer Hörecker being an example of the latter). Remarkably, he didn’t begin picking until October 5, though he was then finished in barely over two weeks, mustering a crew of 15 and, he said, not taking a break even on Sundays. Adequate precautions in the vineyards, he insisted, served to ward off significant early rot. “And not spraying with herbicides,” he added, “means you have plants between the rows to take up water from the soil.” When botrytis did get going during the third week of October, “that was precisely when we wanted it,” resulting in an unusually large volume of Auslese. I continue to appreciate young von Kunow’s determination to pick Kabinett at relatively low must weights and not allow that genre to be swamped by sweetness, as well as his determination to render buoyant and infectiously drinkable Grosse Gewächse. And I hope that the absence from his 2017 collection of feinherb bottlings from the Hütte does not signal a permanent change in his lineup or intentions, although as my coverage of the von Hövel 2016s pointedly noted, stylistically von Kunow is swimming against the prevailing VDP current. (For background on this estate, including its recent expansion and viticultural as well as stylistic evolution under Max von Kunow, consult the introductions to my coverage of its 2014s, 2015s and especially 2016s.)