2022 Weingut Carl Loewen, Riesling Kabinett, Herrenberg, Old Vines, Mosel, Germany.
The old 1200L Mosel fuder raised 2022 Herrenberg Kabinett is beauty from Loewen and even though it’s got a lighter off dry palate it drinks drier than you would expect and has some serious depth, intensity and steely tones with racy citrus, white peach, kiwi, crisp green apple and quince, along with slatey flint and spice. The brisk, low alcohol, but juicy palate adds dimension and a touch of the lees adds a almond and there a bit of verbena and apricot that lingers, this is so good. A huge fan of Christopher Loewen and the Carl Loewen wines and his set of 2022s were impeccable and outstanding wines, and for value it s almost impossible to drink a better Kabinett for the money than his pure and mineral driven Herrenberg. This brilliant Carl Loewen Herrenberg Kabinett comes from ungrafted 100 year old vines, with the Longuicher Herrenberg being planted in 1902, and there remains some original blocks here from 1896 that go into the top cru wines. it is set on pure red slate closer to the Mosel River where it gets a reflection effect, meaning riper fruit and the iron rich broken slate soils influence the Riesling in the grandest way possible. Loewen is very careful picking only grapes that are non botrytis for his drier wines, which takes extreme attention to detail. As noted, these Longuicher Maximin Herrenberg Riesling grapes are from some the oldest Riesling vines in Germany, and from a dramatic steep vineyard, that transmits terroir into the wine.
The Carl Loewen estate, as mentioned before, originally founded by the Catholic followers of the Maximin order was privately established during Napoleonic times around 1803 and the Loewen family purchased the famous Maximin Klosterlay in 1805, after which the family continued to pick up steep parcels in the area, with Christopher’s dad collecting some great plots in more recent times, including the second steepest site in Germany, they very smartly picked up historic vineyards that were difficult to farm, but produced awesome grapes. The Loewen the younger, Christopher, has taken over in the cellar and has set the world on fire with his wines since about the 2014 vintage, employing a more natural approach in the cellar and stricter organic practices in the vines, and as he puts it, he presses the grapes whole cluster and the pomace is never moved as to not break up the solids that leads to phenolic (bitter) flavors that can mire delicate wines and he browns the juice pre-ferment(s), which reduces reduction and he allows the wine to ferment sponti, using no yeast or enzyme additions with his single vineyard wines and top cuvées going directly into large fuder, oak casks. Congratulations to Christopher Loewen, not only for his absolute masterpiece 1896 Feinherb, which I reviewed previously, but for the whole collection of the Weingut Carl Loewen 2022s, including this one, all of which are stunning efforts that I highly recommend, again each of these Rieslings are stars in their own right, don’t miss them.
($25 Est.) 93 points, grapelive