2023 Weingut Schäfer-Fröhlich, Riesling Trocken, Nahe, Germany.
The humbly labeled Weingut Schäfer-Fröhlich Riesling Trocken 2023 vintage is anything but, with outstanding persistence, depth and mineral intensity, this is made for Riesling geeks, like me, and is a wonderful value, not guilt free, but worth every penny. Ultra pale and lightly golden in the glass this 2023 Trocken is bursting with energy and steely precise,as you’d expect from Tim Fröhlich’s hands and vines, with lime based citrus, tangy apricot, wild melon and subtle mango fruits on the vigorous medium bodied palate, along with hints of white flower, flinty slate, clove, verbena, wet stone, sea shore, bitter almond and lemon zest. This bone dry offering is vinous underneath and shows some leesy character, especially with some air and the right cuisine pairing, highlighting the region’s best qualities throughout, you can drink it now, and or age it many years, such is the structure and craftsmanship here at Schäfer-Fröhlich. The Schäfer-Fröhlich’s wines are made naturally with “Sponti” spontaneous fermentation and the Trocken, like the GGs, are reductive like classic white Burgundy, are aged in mostly traditional stainless and stay on the lees for an extended period, up to nine or so months. The winery says the 2023 Riesling Trocken is an all estate wine, harvested from younger vines on red and blue slate and porphyry soils, up the Nahe in Bockenau.
Tim Fröhlich, as mentioned here before, is known for his exceptionally pure terroir wines at the famous Schäfer-Fröhlich in the Bockenau, he is one of the many stars of the Nahe, a region that despite being one of Germany’s smallest, is producing some of the great winemakers and wines. From what I understand, the Fröhlich family has been vignerons and working vineyards since the 1800s, but the Schäfer-Fröhlich label didn’t come into being until the 1970s when the two families through marriage merged and created the winery. Over time this estate has become one of the top wineries in Nahe, joining the region’s elite like Donnhoff and Diel to name a couple. More recently Schäfer-Fröhlich has cemented its reputation in Germany and throughout the world, gaining the following of Riesling enthusiasts, making these wines collectors items, even here in California. This fame is largely due to Tim Fröhlich, who is in charge at Schäfer-Fröhlich after taking over his family’s business in the 1990s. Fröhlich, known widely as a perfectionist and a hard working sort that never rests on success, he made his first vintage in 1995 at the age of 21, and has never looked back. The village of Bockenau, the winery’s location in the Nahe was close to being unknown until Tim’s wines achieved international success, with the wines now some of the most sought-after Rieslings in Germany, and it’s a great time to discover the S-F collection.
($32 Est.) 93 Points, grapelive