Germany’s Pfalz Shows Harmony
The great Kastanienbusch site in the Southern Pfalz from which Rebholz and Dr. Wehrheim make some of the region’s greatest dry Rieslings
German dry riesling still strikes many older consumers right around Planet Wine as a new concept. However, in the Pfalz, situated immediately to the north of Alsace on the eastern side of France, there’s an unbroken tradition of making these wines. Even during the 1960s and 1970s, when Germany’s export markets followed the domestic fashion for sweetish whites, a hard core of Pfalz producers kept making dry wines.
In a few cases, such as Koehler-Ruprecht in Kallstadt, they only made dry wines. The ratings in this report — Koehler-Ruprecht’s 2015 Spätlese Trocken R, from the great Saumagen site, rated 97 points — show that it is still one of the region’s top producers. The difference is that now all the region’s leading winemakers share that focus on dry wines.
Although riesling is the Pfalz’s most important grape, occupying almost exactly 25% of vineyard area, it’s not the only grape from which serious quantities of high-quality dry wines are made. Fine examples of Weissburgunder aka pinot blanc/pinot bianco and grauburgunder aka pinot gris/pinot grigio grapes, of which there’s a total of 2,650 hecatres planted, are also being made.
Franz Wehrheim of Birkweiler who makes some of the region’s most exciting dry Weissburgunder, aka Pinot Blanc
Then there are some serious reds being made from spätburgunder aka pinot noir/pinot nero, of which there are roughly 1,675 hectares. There’s also a growing area planted with French classics such as sauvignon blanc, chardonnay and merlot — plus small areas of a motley crew of local specialties such as goldmuskateller, rieslaner (both white), sankt laurent and cabernet cubin (both red). It must be said, though, that this genetic complexity hasn’t helped the Pfalz achieve a clear profile internationally.
Nor has the fact that it is a sprawling region with more than 23,500 hectares. Its western border consists of the Haardt Mountains, an extension of the Vosges in Alsace, just as it shares its de facto eastern border with the neighboring French region, even if the vines are replaced by fields when you get out onto the broad plain of the Rhine Rift Valley. Compared with these striking natural features on the ground, the northern and southern borders of the Pfalz seem totally arbitrary.
The Pfalz has a trump card though: its warm climate. It enables a wide range of grape varieties to ripen rather easily almost every year. Except in the winter, the wide courtyards typical of traditional winery architecture are home to citrus trees, and fig trees growing outdoors rarely succumb to frost damage.
The worst problem for Pfalz winemakers is actually summer drought, because just as in Alsace, the vineyards lie in the deep rain shadow of the mountains immediately on their western side. However, the recent move to organic and biodynamic viticulture by most of the leading producers has helped to alleviate this by improving soil water retention. Even in the very dry 2015 season, drought stress was generally limited to young vines that weren’t yet cropping.
Read our report and you will see that some of the Pfalz 2015 dry whites are teetering on the edge of overripeness and lack a bit of fresh fruit to animate them. The wines from a number of producers bucked this trend though and are both seriously concentrated and harmonious.
Steffen Christmann of Gimmeldingen, a rare Pfalz winemaker willing to get close to the edge of catastrophe to achieve great things
Our blind tastings proved that 2016 is an almost ideal vintage for the Pfalz. The dry whites have enough weight and depth but also bright fruit and an elegant harmony. Nearly all of them drink well now and — depending on the quality level — have between two and twenty years ahead of them. The quantities produced are often substantial. For example, there are about 120,000 bottles of the basic 2016 Riesling Trocken from Dr. Bürklin-Wolf in Wachenheim, and we rated it 92 points!
Dr. Bürklin-Wolf is one of Germany’s legendary riesling producers, but one of the exciting things about the situation in the region is how it is home to a slew of young winemakers attaining a quality level almost as high as the established stars. Many of the wines from Carolin Bergdolt in Neustadt, Vincent Eymann in Gönnhiem, Thomas Hensel in Bad Dürkheim, Peter Klein in Hainfeld, and Jonas Seckinger in Niederkirchen of the estate wineries that bear their family names plus Thomas Pfaffmann of the Wageck estate in Bissersheim rated 90+, yet they are almost unknown outside Germany.
The Pfalz’s other secret — the quality of the best spätburgunder/pinot noir reds — already got out though thanks in particular to Fritz Becker Jr. of the Friedrich Becker estate in Schweigen. His Heydenreich Spätburgunder 2013 was the highest scoring red at 97 points. However, the Knipser family’s eponymous estate in Laumersheim and the Rebholz’s family Ökonomierat Rebholz estate in Siebeldingen also have impressive track records, and their top reds rated 95+.
All of this is great news, but of course it’s hard not to make comparisons between neighboring regions, and we think that between the Pfalz and Rheinhessen to the north, it’s winemakers from the latter region who are doing a better job of pushing the envelope. The proportion of 90+ ratings were similar for both, but in our Rheinhessen report, there were far more wines on the verge of the coveted 100 points than there are in this article.
We sometimes wish more Pfalz producers shared the attitude of Steffen Christmann of the eponymous estate in Gimmeldingen (and also president of the VDP national quality producers association). “Great things happen on the edge of catastrophe,” he said very calmly. “With the scale and quality of our vineyards, we can dare to approach very close to catastrophe.” The Pfalz has been doing well for a long time, but maybe, in the end, it’s sometimes a little too harmonious there. – Stuart Pigott, Contributing Editor