Enkircher Steffensberg - Riesling (22)

Riesling | 60+ jaar oude stokken, ungrafted | de meest steile cru van Immich | zuidelijk geëxposeerde wijngaard | rode leisteen | vergist en rijpt voor 9 maanden, met de lie, op oude eikenhouten vaten | Riesling met vulling, mooie zuren, rijp fruit, licht romig | wilde kruiden | gul | groots

Immich Batterieberg

De man achter de wijnen van Immich-Batterieberg is Gernot Kollman. Na stages bij Dr.Loosen, van Volxem en 4 jaar bij Weingut Knebel, besloot hij in 2009 het toen failliete wijngoed Immich Batterieberg te kopen om daar zijn eigen wijn te produceren. Gernot staat bekend om zijn fraaie beendroge stijl Riesling die hij spontaan vergist op eikenhouten voeders in de Mosel. Minder restzoet, maar een spatzuivere, energieke levendige wijn met een betere expressie van de wijngaard. Een Riesling met enorme klasse!

Review

The 2015 Riesling Enkircher Steffensberg is from ungrafted vines rooting in a rather reddish colored slate. The wine opens with a very clear, fresh, bright and precise bouquet of ripe and concentrated Riesling flavors along with spicy aromas and notes of lemon confit, iron and crushed stones. Highly elegant on the palate and with very nice tannin structure, this is a complex, very aromatic and superbly balanced Riesling with lots of salt, tension and great finesse. The finish is round and long and continues the great elegance of the palate. This is probably Gernot Kollmann's most accessible and stylish Riesling in 2015. 93/100 Stephan Reinhardt

More and more and thus far with each vintage even more convincing, Gernot Kollmann is pushing Immich-Batterieberg (one of the oldest wine estates of the Mosel valley) into the small but fine group that produces really great dry Rieslings along the Mosel, Saar and Ruwer. They are sourced from five extremely steep grand cru vineyards located between Traben-Trarbach and Enkirch. All of them were ranked in the highest class of the Prussian Vineyard Classification of 1868, which itself was based on Napoleon’s single plot classification of 1804: Ellergrub, Zeppwingert and Batterieberg (on particularly quartzite-rich slate soils) as well as the pure south-facing Steffensberg (on iron-rich slate). Since late 2014, the Trabener Zollturm is the fifth grand cru of the domaine. A very large portion of the vines are very old (60+ years) and ungrafted and, thus, provide a rare genetic diversity but also naturally low yields (30 hectoliters per hectare or even less). Combined with the organic/biodynamic farming, this leads to deep and complex, highly individual, precise and elegant Rieslings for which only the finest barrels are chosen to become grand cru. The de-classified wines from the grands crus source the Escheburg, which is an impressive super second. Regarding the 2015 vintage, Gernot Kollmann is not less enthusiastic than his colleagues. "Given this very hot summer, we are finally surprised how much acidity and finesse the wines have. Also, the harvest was very easy. Botrytis was very rare and during the vegetation period we had just four sprayings to protect our vines." The Immich team started harvesting not as early as others on October 12, but had already finished 17 days later on October 29. The crus were all picked during the last week of the harvest. The botrytis was sorted out and, in the Zeppwingert, selected for a fascinating, piquant and mineral Auslese in the old Immich style. Kollmann's range is full of highlights and only the Zollturm does not yet have the vitality and tension of the other crus. But, that's mainly due to the fact that this cru has only been cultivated by Immich-Batterieberg since 2015 and needs a couple of years to adapt to the organic farming that gives the other crus so much more precision, vitality and energy after a few years! The Ellergrub and the Zeppwingert are outstanding in their purity, finesse and elegance as well as in their terroir expression. The old-styled Auslese (which is much less sweet than most of its peers) is simply gorgeous and provided with electrifying acidity!