2017 Von Winning Pechstein GG Riesling

“Von Winning…has the greatest living cellar master in all of Germany.”

“The fact is that this estate is crafting some of the very best dry wines in Germany.”

“These are wines Raveneau would make if he grew Riesling in Deidesheim.”

High praise indeed.  Here are the details:

A wealthy investor knew the estate, once called Dr. Deinhard (this name is now reserved for sweet wines), and knew that its grands crus holdings—Grosses Gewachs in German—were considered to be some of the best as far back as 400 years ago.

The investor hires an obsessively quality-driven winemaking/vinicultural team.

They convert the winery to “traditional” methods.  “Traditional” is controversial here.  The biggest controversy is the use of oak to ferment their Rieslings.  It’s a stylistic storming of the gates but it works, and the world wine press agrees.  These are some of the most original, dynamic Rieslings being made worldwide.  They aren’t cheap, but they are incredibly worth it.  You won’t be disappointed.

Here is a description of the wines, courtesy of the famous author and wine importer Terry Theise:

Ungeheuer: “Larger production = lower price. It isn’t that hard to pronounce but you have to know how. Think Oonga-Hoyer. Now repeat after me: OONGA! HOYER! There, that’s it. In some ways the prototypical Pfalz wine, earthy, fiery and caramel-y, bone-brothy and savory….yet this one is focused and almost flowery; physio-sweet, with a finish that is monstrous indeed, a wine with a bone-breaker handshake.”

Langenmorgen: “It’s the nerd among the “GGs” of Deidesheim, and it’s my personal favorite; the stoniest and most focused, complex and digital; it pulls you in, it’s introverted and numinous and insanely flowery, sous bois, thinly stony like what you skip on the surface of a pond. Chinese 5-spice comes on. How does wine do this, refer to four different families of flavor within one perfect structure?”

Pechstein: “I’m almost certainly underrating this wine, but my initial sense was that the power of ’15 had masked some of the angular floweriness that makes this great Forst wine so beloved. It was almost demure, though atypically fierce and not especially floral. The basalt twang is riding a vein of pepper and spices and an overt stoniness.”

Kirchenstruck: “The Great One, the Clos-Ste-Hûne of the Pfalz. The fragrance is strong, the wine is strong. It’s blatantly great. Wicky, mineral, licorice-y, imploding fruit and ore, nothing very mystic here, just a wickedly curvaceous writhing mélange of power with the nth degree of intricacy.”