2018 Weingut Dönnhoff, Riesling Feinherb, Cuvée R, Hermannshöhle, VDP Grosse Lage, Nahe, Germany.
It was great to catch up on the latest releases from Dönnhoff, with their 2022 and 2023 showing fantastically well and are wines to stock up on, but I also discovered this beautiful special old vine “R” Riesling, a cellar selection from the winery that is slightly off-dry, but with GG like character and pedigree. The 2018 vintage is kind of a sleeper year, strangely not favored by critics, but with some fabulous efforts, as this wine proves, especially with the extra age that this Nahe gem has, showing off a great depth of fruit, crystalline purity and intense minerality. The palate of the pale gold hued Hermannshöhle -R- Riesling is nicely structured and pleasingly vinous with bright citrus, apricot, green apple and puckering quince fruit, along with generous roundness, an array of spices, liquid rock, citron oil, chamomile, a fine saltiness and a hint of rosewater. The tiny extra amount of residual sugar adds mainly a creamy dimension to this excellent wine. The dry drinking “R” Hermannshöhle, coming from 65 year old vines with a steep slope of between 40 – 60% degrees, sees a fermentation in cool conditions and is matured in a mixture of stainless steel vats and neutral oak with 1200L German stückfass from Hösch, all playing a part to make this wine so brilliantly balanced and transparent, while allowing for textural grace. Cornelius Dönnhoff makes some of the world’s greatest wines and continues the excellence in Riesling with his newest set of offerings, it is never a mistake to drink any of these Dönnhoff wines and this one is an outstanding example of pleasure and class.
A vineyard that has the same prestige as Montrachet, the Niederhauser Hermannshöhle is one of Germany’s and especially the Nahe region’s jewels with some of the best and historic wines coming from this spectacular site above the river. As noted by the winery and wine lovers for over a hundred years, the Hermannshöhle has been revered as one of the Nahe‘s best vineyards and is a benchmark for the Nahe. It most likely takes its name, according to the Dönnhoff family, from a small mine, or “Höhle”, in the middle of the hillside and “Hermann” is derived from Hermes, the Roman god of messengers and travelers. The name likely hints at an ancient place of worship once located here, in Germany’s smallest region that straddles the Rheinhessen and the Rheingau. The VDP Grosse Lage Hermannshöhle vineyard faces due south and sits up around 150 meters above sea level and has a combination of complex soils with a lot of slate, mixed with igneous rock, porphyry (volcanic) and limestone elements. The mature and organically farmed vines are on steep slope and there is micro parcels here that allow making of both dry and sweet Riesling treasures. It should be noted that the Dönnhoff Riesling vines are all old clones and are quite distinctive in character and add tons of terroir personality, in particular in their Grand Cru wines, such as Klamm, Brücke, Leistenberg, Felsenberg, Kirschheck, Dellchen, Krötenpfuhl, Kahlenberg, and Höllenpfad. There’s exceptional quality throughout the range at Dönnhoff and I, as noted before, am a huge fan of these wines and highly recommend them all, with my personal favorites being the Leistenberg Kabinett, the Hermannshöhle GG, the Tonschiefer Riesling Trocken and this one.
($60 Est.) 94 Points, grapelive