Back to the Future, Ernie Loosen’s Dry GG Wines
I had the pleasure to catch up with Ernie Loosen on a recent visit to Melbourne and he opened a set of his dry Grosses Gewächs (GG) wines. Loosen’s sweet Mosel wines are a reference for that style and these more recent dry GG wines are cleverly conceived and well executed. He has an acute intellect and a keen eye for quality and it shows in every wine he presented.
Loosen’s energy for great wine is as formidable as his palate: he drinks and collects great wine from all over the world (plenty of it from Burgundy) and he understands the DNA of great wine in a way very few ever will.
The impetus to make or revive these dry wines under the Loosen label came in part from the observation of what is currently happening in the market with GG bottlings, but perhaps, more importantly, they are informed by his family history, seeing wines that had been kept in cask for a very long time and observing the way they had built and evolved. They’ve provided an opportunity to elucidate further value and specificity in terms of utilizing old ungrafted vines that grow on their own roots (Alte Reben) in the best sites.
Loosen explains that, up until the late 1930’s, wines in the Mosel were more or less randomly sweet as sterile filtration and fining were not available techniques. He credits the Prüm family as being integral in bringing this technology to bear not just in their wines but popularizing it throughout the region.
So historically most wines were dry, there was no fining or filtration and Loosen is particularly interested in understanding the impact and potential value of time to make wine fall bright in cask as well as bringing an additional sense of textural integration.
“Between 1750 and 1800 it was absolutely common to keep Rhine and Mosel rieslings for between twenty and thirty years in the barrel,” Loosen points out, “I thought that was impossible!” So he took a barrel of 1981 Wehlener Sonnenuhr early in his winemaking experience and set it aside. He then bottled it in 2008, some 27 years later.
“We bottled it and it had cider-like notes so we just put it somewhere and forgot about it. Then very late one night we opened one of the bottles and it had freshened, it looked younger, the cider notes had gone and the wine looked completely different,” Loosen recalls. It had also (and oddly) retained high acidity, a trait which through some further investigation Loosen thinks can be attributed to a bacterial malic acid production, replenishing acidity back into the wine over longer term ageing in cask.
Ultimately, this all gave birth to the idea to try and rediscover the bounty of time in winemaking and to eschew compromise in terms of clarifying wine for bottling. “This approach can slow down the sales,” Loosen laughs, “my brother Thomas already hates me because I do so many experiments withholding wine in our cellars. He said to me ‘don’t you know that we produce wine to sell not to put away’ but luckily I am in charge!”
Below are the all the wines I tasted with Ernie; click on wine names for tasting notes and scores.
Dr. Loosen Urziger Würzgarten Riesling Grosses Gewächs Alte Reben 2012
Dr. Loosen Urziger Würzgarten Riesling Grosses Gewächs Alte Reben 2013
Dr. Loosen Urziger Würzgarten Riesling Grosses Gewächs Reserve Alte Reben 2012
Dr. Loosen Erdener Treppchen Riesling Grosses Gewächs Alte Reben 2012
Dr. Loosen Wehlener Sonnenuhr Riesling Grosses Gewächs Alte Reben 2014
Dr. Loosen Erdener Prälat Riesling Grosses Gewächs Alte Reben 2014
Contributing Editor Nick Stock is a renowned Australian wine writer, author, presenter and filmmaker who reports on his worldwide wine tasting experiences for JamesSuckling.com.