2018 Riesling Kanzemer Altenberg Spätlese Alte Reben

Cellarmaster Andreas Barth and vineyard manager Swen Klinger set a record not just for this estate but as far as they were aware for their entire region when in 2018 they began picking on September 10! Nor were they among the many who took beautiful weather as an excuse to take their time. Their starting date represented a relatively short-term course correction driven not just by unprecedentedly elevated must weights but also by acid levels that were moderate and very soon began dropping. The window for picking Kabinett was only a few days, noted Barth, and by the time his team started, fruit in the Wiltinger Kupp was already too ripe for what he deemed proper Kabinett. Another wine that doesn’t appear in the 2018 collection is Wawerner Herrenberger Grosses Gewächs. “Due to restructuring in the Herrenberg,” explained Barth, “I have a reduced amount of old vine material [there], and I thought that the aromatics of Herrenberg perfectly suited residually sweet wine.” Although harvest continued until the third week of October – including selection for TBA, thanks to late-developing botrytis – the bulk of the crop had by then long since been secured. Moreover, my appraisal of this year’s two Auslesen suggests that the best was by no means left for last.

I was unable to taste the Gutsriesling trocken “Max” – which at the time of my most recent visit with Barth had not yet been assembled – and also missed out on a village-level Kanzemer trocken and Herrenberger Kabinett. Small lots from desiccated botrytis berries had not all finished fermenting at the time of my visit, and it had not even been determined what would become BA and what TBA, let alone when those eventual wines would be bottled. (For details concerning this estate’s recent history, consult especially the introduction to my account of their 2014s.)