wein.plus
Attention
You are using an old browser that may not function as expected.
For a better, safer browsing experience, please upgrade your browser.

Log in Become a Member

... and why it is still pointless.

A few weeks ago, Captain vulgo Manfred Klimek said on "Welt online" that one could judge vintages even if one only looked at a few, but the right wines, namely those of the winegrowers who are known to be particularly good. For those who only want to buy the top wines of a vintage from the best-known wineries, that might be enough. Not for everyone else.

Let's get one thing straight right away: Vintage assessments are always wrong. It is true that statements can be made about how the weather conditions of a year affect the possibilities that a winemaker of a certain region has with certain grape varieties, but in individual cases, when it comes to a specific wine, this information is worthless at least until you have the wine in your glass. Then they can possibly explain why a wine is particularly good or particularly bad. And that, too, is often enough different from what is generally assumed when talking about good and bad vintages.

Basically, vintages that challenge the winemaker make it difficult for those producers who like to work more from the drawing board. Those who are not or cannot be flexible enough to react quickly and purposefully to unforeseen events in their vineyard work, those who focus more on yields or oechsle degrees than on the actual quality of the grapes, those who tend to lack a feel for the vineyard and the vines, those who think they can fix in the cellar what they missed in the vineyard and on the selection table, will always lose out in difficult years.

But there are always producers who not only accept this challenge, but even let it drive them to unimagined heights. It is precisely in difficult years that some winemakers produce their best wines. Sometimes they are even those whose wines would be considered "far from it" in vintages with the best reputations. In effortless vintages, no effort is made here, but in the complicated ones, all the more.

The other extreme is the wine producer who wants to make something extraordinary out of a potentially good vintage at any price - and fails because of his ambition. The apparently best vintage is of no use if the grapes arrive in the cellar far too ripe. Too much sugar can be a curse; lack of acidity may be compensated for to some extent, but the often rather undesirable aroma changes in overripe berries cannot. And what does the anxious person do, who wants to avoid all this and also fears rot and disease, which always lurk in years with early ripeness as soon as the still warm autumn climate becomes a little damp? He harvests too early, the wines lack ripeness, harmony and aroma.

In addition, the conditions may change several times in autumn, they may be ideal for one variety but terrible for another. That the winemaker gets bogged down because he absolutely has to develop 20 varieties in an average of five degrees of quality and sweetness. And who knows in which cellar there might have been massive fermentation problems? Bad decisions with serious consequences? Hygiene deficiencies? In the end, I can be standing in front of a bottle of wine from a nominally great vintage and the wine inside is terrible - and next to it is one from a much-maligned year that would thrill me if I only made the right choice.

If you want to be on the safe side, the only thing to do is to concentrate on producers you know to be reliable and possibly first-class. And that for years. Because they almost always do the right thing in the vineyard as well as in the cellar, because they have a feeling for it and the necessary experience, because they take risks where they are possible and necessary, but know exactly when they are overdoing it.

And that's where it gets interesting. This is where many wine writers make the biggest mistake. Since we are dealing with producers who try year after year to get the best out of a vintage, it is precisely with them that you can actually observe where the limit was in the respective vintage for a certain area. Not exactly, there are still too many other factors that play a role, but approximately, especially if you taste enough wines from enough top people. But you have to look carefully. And you should never draw conclusions about the whole vintage from the last possibilities at the top, even if they are exceptional. But that is exactly what is done on a regular basis.

Every year we hear - mostly from the same people - the story of the great vintage. Barrel samples are tasted in the spring by the usual suspects and without hesitation proclaimed the best wines of the vintage - and the vintage immediately the best since grandpa came home from the war. The wines undoubtedly taste good, they do here every year, which is why these are the big names of the German wine world. But if that is the standard for a great vintage, then there are (almost) exclusively great vintages.

Some people, of course, are only happy if such an impression is created. Those who like to be the very first, who want to have understood the year, those who simply like to be patted on the back by their favourite winemakers, those, of course, who want to sell wine, and last but not least those who have to earn money from advertising it. Even the consumer is happy when he goes shopping in the certainty of getting a great vintage.

That's why no one looks so closely. But it is not enough to skim the cream off the top every year. To understand what's going on in a vintage and why, you have to have gone way down and all the way up. Then you can actually make a halfway informed judgement about a vintage.

Which is then wrong again.

Related Magazine Articles

View All
More
More
More
More
More
More
More
More
More
More

EVENTS NEAR YOU

PREMIUM PARTNERS