2023 Weingut Spreitzer, Riesling Feinherb, Jesuitengarten VDP Grosse Lage, Alte Reben, Rheingau, Germany.
One of my favorites of Spreitzer’s cask samples, I tried with Andreas Spreitzer this last Summer, was his gorgeous slightly off dry Jesuitengarten old vine Feinherb bottling, which will be a steal for the offer price. The Spreitzer’s make a glorious GG from their historic parcels at the Winkeler Jesuitengarten vineyard, and this one drinks well into the same league with loads of mineral intensity, but with a bit more generosity and early drinking pleasure, making it a sleeper the upcoming releases. The 2023 vintage, a difficult year, with loads of rain and humidity, saw lots of extra work in the vineyard to remove rot and the yields were way down, but miraculously the fruit quality looks to be at classic quality levels, and Spreitzer’s hardwork paid off with an amazing set of wines, like this one. Fresh, aromatic and steely on the nose this pale golden Riesling shines in the glass and on the medium bodied palate drinking pretty close to trocken with a Spreitzer signature opulence and refined sense of acidity. The mouth has zesty lime, tangerine and white peach fruits up front, along with a touch of exotic tropical pineapple and mango, as well as some salty notes, crushed stones, sweet and sour herbs, rosewater, tea spice and lemon oil. There is a subtle creaminess to this Jesuitengarten Old Vine Feinherb that is very appealing and the faintest of sweetness here, making for wine that is wonderfully flexible with cuisine and probably awesome with Sushi, but it will also please with more traditional German fare too. The Holidays always make me want Riesling and that certainly helped spark the memories of the Skurnik West Coast Germany and Austria tasting and of Spreitzer’s set of delicious wines.
The famed Jesuitengarten Grosse Lage vineyard is near the middle Rhein village of Oestrich, Spreitzer’s home base with vines here, for this Alte Reben, being well over 40 years old now and set on a complex mix of loam, loess, shell-limestone, gravel and sand, and is a prized site in the family’s portfolio, along with the Rosengarten and Wisselbrunnen Grand Crus. As noted here, and reminded to me by Spreitzer, when I visited the region in 2016 and their importer Skurnik wines, the viticulture practices are as natural and sustainable as possible and include alternating cover crops of herbs, greens, and lentils in the summer with grains in the winter. The Spreitzer brothers Andreas and Bernd strive to maintain fruit purity and finesse by cleaning the must by gravity for 24 hours after whole-cluster pressing the carefully sorted grapes. The wines also rest on their gross lees and only see filtering just once, which all takes away green bitter phenolics in the finished wines. They employ a long fermentation, and extended lees aging to protect the juice from oxidation, but the wines are not overtly reductive or closed up when young. Spreitzer when conditions are good use native yeasts for fermentation, which is done in both temperature controlled stainless steel and old 1200 liter casks of German wood, called stückfass, with this one seeing the oak aging for 9 months. I was happy to see Andreas this Summer in San Francisco and taste through a selection of 2021, 2022 and the samples of 2023, and I found some brilliant stuff again, including the majestic 2021 GGs, which I have reviewed here and wines like this one, an under the radar gem that I can’t wait to get!
($34 Est.) 93 Points, grapelive