Riesling 1e lage Monzinger Niederberg - Riesling (21)

Riesling | 1e Lage Monzinger Niederberg | ligging net naast de Grosse Lage Halenberg | kwartsiet en blauwe leisteen | diepe mineraliteit | citrus | intensiteit | puur karakter | pittige zuren

Emrich-Schönleber

Frank en Werner Schönleber bottelen pas sinds 2001 onder hun eigen label en behoren sindsdien tot de absolute elite van de Duitse Rieslingproducenten van de afgelopen 10 jaar. Een mix van leisteen en quarzit, de warme zomerdagen en koude nachten, maken  de omstandigheden perfect om Riesling te verbouwen. Wat resulteert in wijnen met enorme precisie, diepte en een rijke mineralig expressie! Een prachtige aanwinst op het assortiment van Smaragd wijnen!

Review

From the same soils as the Halenberg but later ripening due to a lack of thermal updraft, the 2021 Monzinger Niederberg 1G is deep, coolish and more slatey on the nose that also reveals some pure and refreshing dashes of lemon juice. It is savory and intense in its round but tart grapefruit notes and very precise and nicely bitter (or tart) on the finish. This is another pure, straight and linear dry Riesling that is still bloody young but will turn out as another great 2021 at Schönleber—but this will take four, five or maybe even more years. There are fine tannins on the finish. Natural cork. 12% stated alcohol. Tasted at the domaine in August 2022. 94+/100 Stephan Reinhardt

Werner Schönleber associates the 2021 vintage with "inchworms, thunderstorms, Peronospora and the dry vintages before." All this contributed to the modest harvest in the fall of 2021. Although the harvest team was able to pick healthy grapes, there were just "far too few." The crop was about 25% below the long-term average.

Botrytis was almost non-existent, and the Schönlebers put a lot of effort into wringing about 500 liters of Auslese from nature—or the Halenberg. "All the other grapes were sparkling clean," Werner told me at the end of August, while his son, Frank, had quickly slipped away on a family vacation before the early 2022 harvest. 

Werner Schönleber knew plenty of cool, wet years like 2021. "For me, 2021 is a classic German vintage. Today, of course, we think it's super, since years with racy acidity and moderate alcohol levels have become rare and we had already stopped believing we could harvest something like that again at all." 

The 2021 harvest began at the end of September for sparkling wines, followed by the Pinot varieties. The Riesling harvest began around October 10 and lasted until the first week of November. Shortly before Christmas, it was even possible to harvest ice wine in the Frühlingsplätzchen. 

Once again, Schönleber shows that his domaine—or the Nahe as a whole—can play the entire Riesling keyboard from dry to noble sweet. Along with the Mosel, the Nahe has been one of the most exciting areas for Riesling aficionados worldwide for years. 

That Schönleber's Grosses Gewächs are among the world's great white wines should be well known. But I find it at least as remarkable that the Rieslings without a site designation—Mineral, Halgans, Frühtau—are also among the best wines of the Nahe and should put many a Grosses Gewächs in Germany to shame. Even the inexpensive 2021 Estate Riesling trocken is worth 93 points to me because it has so much character, as if it came from a very special place. And it does: from Monzingen.