Having now finished my notes on tasting VDP auction wines, I turn to my tasting of VDP Grosses Gewächs (“GG”) wines, which were tasted under conditions that allowed for more careful evaluation.
For whites, the main vintage presented was 2018, but an increasing number of producers is holding back wines for a year, so there was a not insubstantial number of 2017s presented. In order to hold back a year, a vintage of that wine necessarily must be lacking until the following year, so there may be some GG’s that are customarily presented that are missing from this year’s tasting.
2018 was a year of warmth, dryness, and sunniness — often record-setting in those categories. In addition, yields were very high, sometimes astonishingly high. On the positive side, that means that there were essentially no problems with fungal diseases. On the negative side, it could mean wines with problems such as high alcohol, low acidity, clumsy acid adjustment, and dilution. Fortunately, with wines from VDP producers, we are dealing with highly experienced and conscientious producers so these problems did not manifest themselves in almost all the wines I tasted.
The result for 2018 GG Rieslings is a vintage of very good quality, but almost never reaching quite the exciting heights of other recent vintages such as 2017, as you’ll see in the next few weeks as I publish my notes from the tasting. Silvaner, and even more, Weissburgunder (Pinot Blanc) were less good than Rieslings in 2018. The two regions that did stand out the most in 2018 were the Rheingau and the middle part of the Pfalz.
In reds, the 2017 Spätburgunders stood out as excellent — both due to vintage conditions and also the fact that increasing numbers of producers are beginning to understand that high oak and extract are not what make a great Pinot Noir.