The Realm of Riesling

TASTING NOTES

The Realm of Riesling

ON A WINDSWEPT SLOPE NEAR THE RIVER SAAR, A MYTHIC WINEMAKER IS CREATING INCREASINGLY REMARKABLE VINTAGES, WHILE HIS NEIGHBOURS ARE HELPING TO TURN A SWEET VALLEY DRY, FINDS JEFFREY T IVERSON

70 NetJets

TASTING NOTES

The Realm of Riesling

ON A WINDSWEPT SLOPE NEAR THE RIVER SAAR, A MYTHIC WINEMAKER IS CREATING INCREASINGLY REMARKABLE VINTAGES, WHILE HIS NEIGHBOURS ARE HELPING TO TURN A SWEET VALLEY DRY, FINDS JEFFREY T IVERSON

70 NetJets

ANDREAS DURST

Bounteous hills Weingut Egon MüllerScharzhof’s sloping vineyards are producing ambrosial riesling

71 NetJets

IF THERE WAS A CORNER OF THE WINE WORLD REMAINING WHERE THE NAME OF Egon Müller IV wasn’t already known, that changed with last year’s Grosser Ring wine auction in Trier, Germany. The event sees many of Germany’s top estates put their choicest cuvées up for bid, and at the 2017 edition the final lot offered was the newly released 2003 Scharzhofberger Trockenbeerenauslese by Weingut Egon Müller-Scharzhof (scharzhof. de) in Wiltingen. By the time the hammer finally fell, this cordial of noble-rot riesling from the Mosel-Saar-Ruwer region had sold for €12,000 per bottle, thus becoming not only the world’s most expensive sweet wine, but the most expensive new release wine ever.

How can a wine command such a price? Extreme rarity, firstly. Egon Müller produces just 100–200 bottles each vintage of Trockenbeerenauslese (TBA – literally, “driedberry selection”), the fruit of meticulous, berryby-berry hand-sorting, to select only the most intensely concentrated, completely raisined, botrytis-enriched grapes. The result is a honeycoloured wine that boasts bracing acidity, low alcohol and an astonishing 140 to 500 grams of residual sugar, which critic Jancis Robinson once described as “the most extraordinarily revitalising lime syrup, with headily floral notes [lasting] for minute after minute in the mouth”.

An international craving for these elixirs has steadily grown over the last 150 years, notably

72 NetJets

▲ Making a difference Clockwise from top left: Vereinigte Hospitien, an estate founded under Napoleon, boasts ancient wine cellars; Egon Müller IV, who has followed in his family footsteps; Roman Niewodniczanski, owner of Van Volxem; Vereinigte Hospitien 2017 Scharzhofberger; Reichsgraf von Kesselstatt, one of the area‘s oldest producers

since Egon Müller I took his wines to compete at the world fairs of London (1862), Chicago (1893) and Paris (1900), bringing home the highest awards. Today, Müller IV aspires only to make wine with as much scrupulous attention to detail as his ancestors once did. For his compatriots, he is their region’s Lichtgestalt – shining light.

But ask Müller the secret to such luminous wines, and his favourite response is surprisingly humble: “It’s not me, it’s the Scharzhofberg.”

The best-known vineyard site in Germany, Scharzhofberg was believed to be planted by the Romans. Located near Wiltingen in a windswept side valley of the Saar river (a Mosel tributary), its south-facing slopes are vertiginously steep, with a grade of 30 to 60%, reaching an elevation of 280 metres. The deep soils, formed from weathered grey Devonian slate, are so fine and silty they shift underfoot, and so rich in iron that they turn rain puddles red. Planted entirely with riesling, considered the most site-expressive white varietal in the grape world, it’s perhaps no surprise that experts seem to taste rocks in the glass, like The Wine Advocate’s Stephan Reinhardt who extols the “delicate slate spiciness” of the area.

Since acquiring the Scharzhof estate in 1797, the Müller family has cultivated the Scharzhofberg’s aura with a kaleidoscope of wines of various sweetness levels, from its fruity Kabinett style to the opulent TBA. But while the Müller name has become almost

ANDREAS DURST (2), © WEINGUT REICHSGRAF VON KESSELSTATT

TASTING NOTES

MARTIN KREUZER, © VEREINIGTE HOSPITIEN

synonymous with that of Scharzhofberg, there are in fact eight producers who share its 28 hectares. Today, several of them are emerging from the giant’s shadow, in many cases not by imitating the ambrosial Müller archetype, but with exciting new styles and interpretations of this legendary terroir.

Last year, while Müller’s record-breaking sale caused a stir, another watershed event in Germany seemingly went under the radar.

For the first time since the European wine magazine Vinum’s creation in 1980, its 2018 guide to German wines named a dry riesling as the best wine of the whole vintage: the 2016 Scharzhofberger ‘P’ Riesling by Van Volxem (vanvolxem.com). That the wine hailed from the Saar was all the more stunning, given its renown for sweet and fruity wines.

Today, Van Volxem is nearing another achievement – the completion of its new winery, an immense, stone-dressed structure rising high above the Saar. Since 1999, owner Roman Niewodniczanski has invested millions to rehabilitate the once run-down estate. Now the vast windows of his future tasting room will offer a breathtaking view of Scharzhofberg and Van Volxem’s other sites. “This piece of modern architecture is an expression of the renaissance of the Saar,” he says. “We believe in the lightness, the beauty and the drinkability of Saar riesling.

I think there will be a growing demand for light and elegant white wines.”

In Niewodniczanski’s eyes, in the context of a warming climate, no wine region is better situated to offer such wines than the Saar, and Scharzhofberg is like the pinnacle of an iceberg.

“The magic of the Scharzhofberg is in the purity and minerality that it gives, from the cool winds, deep rootstocks and the very unique slate we have there,” he says. “There’s always been some kind of magic in its wines, die Magie von Scharzhofberg …

It’s what allows Egon to make sweet wines that can age for decades. My motivation is to prove we can do the same with dry wines.”

Before the 1930s, notes Niewodniczanski, the wines of Scharzhofberg were actually

mostly dry or off-dry. That tradition lives on at Vereinigte Hospitien (vereinigtehospitien.de), an endowed wine estate in Trier created in 1804 when Napoleon Bonaparte bequeathed seized monastic vineyards to an institution for invalids.

“It’s because of the hospital that we always had a tradition of dry wines,” explains Sales Director Marc Neumann. “Historically, there was this belief that dry wines were better for the health of older people, thus we always had a large stock of them.” Today, 60% of the estate’s wines are dry, including its spicy, juicy, mineralesque 2016 Scharzhofberg Grosses Gewächs (the term for Germany’s finest dry whites).

One of the estates that’s done the most to establish the reputation of dry Scharzhofberg riesling is also one of the oldest, Reichsgraf von Kesselstatt (kesselstatt.de), dating back to 1349.

The late owner Annegret Reh-Gartner started experimenting with dry wines in the 1980s, before releasing its first Scharzhofberger Grosses Gewächs in 2005. “In wine, like any business, you can never stand still,” says Michael Weber, the managing director of viticulture. “You have to keep pioneering.” Reh-Gartner discovered

that the drier the wine, the more Scharzhofberg’s flinty minerality and salty character showed through – but only with age. At first, they’re almost closed. “There’s this pressure, this tension, to the wine,” says Wolfgang Mertes, Managing Director of Oenology. “While young they can be a bit astringent, but after a year that passes.

Then the wine only improves with time.” In three to five years, says Mertes, its stony, salty, blackcurrant flavours become more pronounced.

In 10 to 15 years, “they’re intense enough to pair with a steak”.

For Maximilian von Kunow, the seventh generation behind the venerable Weingut von Hövel (weingut-vonhoevel.com), it was after experiencing winemaking from the United States to South Africa that he finally understood a simple but essential truth about Scharzhofberg. Pouring a taste of his 2017 Scharzhofberg Grosses Gewächs, he put it this way: “This saltiness, these cassis and gooseberry aromas, this long, long finish – that’s not normal riesling.” Since 2010, he’s received multiple accolades for magnifying the special character of this singular site with organic farming and a new range of dry wines. “You have to go around the world as I did as a young winemaker to realise what we have here,” he says. “Scharzhofberg is the quintessential cold climate vineyard. Egon Müller and his family have created this myth around the vineyard. But a myth can only live if there’s a truly a great wine behind it.” And in Scharzhofberg, there clearly is, be it luxuriously sweet or thrillingly dry. ■ Luxembourg Airport (to Trier): 25miles/40km

73 NetJets