2012 Weingut Meyer-Nakel, Spatburgunder, AHR, Germany.
The Red Baron’s latest Estate Pinot Noir is quite stunning and fresh with sublime vibrancy and life, Werner Nakel also used restraint here with no obvious new oak influence. With projects in South Africa and Portugal, Nakel is a busy modern winemaker, but it is his great wines and passion lies in his estate in the AHR where he crafts some of the world’s greatest Pinot Noir wines from slate soils and a cool climate in Germany’s historic and famed Spatburgunder region. While Spatburgunder is grown with success and renown in the Pfalz with Becker making fine offerings, and even in the Rheingau where Hollenberg Assmannhausen is a great site as well, but it is the remote AHR that might be the finest spot for Pinot Noir, and Meyer-Nakel certainly is the top. Meyer-Nakel’s Grand Crus and special cuvees like “S” and “Blue Slate” are highly prized and spendy of course, but the Estate bottling is always a steal and the 2012 is exceptional with vivid flavors, delicacy and gorgeous textural mouth feel with good acidity, mineral tones and nice length. The 2012 Meyer-Nakel Spatburgunder stats with blueberry, flinty spice and kirsch leading to a deep palate of spiced plum, blackberry and a core of black cherry along with red pepper, crushed stones, a hint of smoke and lifting acidity that brightens things up and adds zip in this young wine. This wine feels dreamy and light, but it fills out and gains density with air leaving a heavenly aftertaste. Drink this beauty over the next 3 to 5 years, even though it should age a decade, this is elegant and classy stuff, I think the appeal is the well judged touch and less oak character than the upper level wines.
($35 Est.) 94 Points, grapelive
