A. Christmann Neustadt Vogelsang Riesling Grosses Gewachs 2023

“The 2023 Vogelsang Neustadt Riesling VDP.Grosse Lage is from pure Muschelkalk soils and opens with a pure yet intense and mineral as well as sur lie-scented nose of very fine Riesling berries. Round and elegant on the palate, this is a full-bodied, pure, saline and crunchy Riesling whose style is clearly aligned with the Pinot Noir. This is based on vines planted in the early 1980s and a very small part of very young vines from 2019. 12% stated alcohol. Diam 30 cork. Tasted at the domaine in January 2024. Drink: 2028-2060. 96 points

The venerable domaine in the old center of Gimmeldingen has specialized entirely in Riesling and Pinot Noir under the direction of Steffen Christmann and his daughter Sophie. For their third pillar, sparkling wine, so to speak, the two joined forces with Alsatian Matthieu Kauffmann, a former cellar master at Bollinger, and have been building up the Sektgut Christmann & Kauffmann for several years. On the edge of the Haardt Mountains, which slope down to the Rhine Plain, the winery produces Rieslings and Pinot Noirs in a variety of terroirs, predominantly on lime marl and red sandstone weathered soils, which are among the finest in the entire Palatinate. The current vintages once again underscore this. The 2022 vintage is also outstanding for Pinot Noir at Christmann. The wines have never been more intense, but they have also never been finer, more elegant and better balanced.

The partly extremely hot and dry 2022 vintage was outstanding for Pinot Noir almost everywhere in Germany and also around Neustadt and at Christmann. It was to be expected that the grapes would be fully ripe and intense in flavors. However, the red wines have never been finer, more elegant and better balanced chez Christmann so far. Due to the generous vintage, the proportion of whole clusters in the fermentations was increased. Thanks to the contact with the stems and seeds, Christmann’s 2022 Pinot Noir red wines have a slightly higher tannin content. “When tasting the fermenting musts, we had the feeling that the extraction was very quick and intense,” explains Sophie Christmann. “So, we pressed a little earlier and separated the young wines from the skins earlier than in previous years in order to retain sufficient freshness in this powerful vintage.” That worked out well. The red wines combine fully ripe and elegant juiciness with serious freshness and structure. The GGs from the Idig and the Vogelsang are fascinating.

The Riesling ripening process in 2023 is characterized by long periods of good weather but also those of rain. While the rainfall in July and August was still welcome, the weather became a “challenge” in mid-August, says Christmann. The water absorption caused the grapes to become plump, some threatened to burst, others burst. It was not until the start of the grape harvest at the beginning of September that the long, Indian summer set in and turned everything around. Nevertheless, some bad grapes had to be cut out by hand, berry by berry. “It was a harvest in which we would not have been able to pick perfect grapes without the 60-plus hands of our team,” says Sophie. The Rieslings were small-berried and rich in extract, and the fermentations went quickly. The wines are dense, with fine fruit acidity and length.

With the 2023 Königsbacher Heidböhl VDP.Erste Lage, Christmann has a new Riesling in the portfolio. The Heidböhl continues the Idig grand cru eastward toward the Rhine Valley. Sloping slightly more gently toward the south, this vineyard is slightly cooler than the Idig. The soil consists of a mixture of red sandstone and limestone, giving the comparatively slender Riesling the typical spiciness and stony character.

Christmann’s Neustadt Vogelsang Riesling, rehabilitated a few years ago, is now, for the first time, as complex as one might expect from a Grosses Gewächs. Wines from this long-forgotten site, which was cultivated in a highly conventional manner after the war, were still being delivered to the Bavarian royal court in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Since 2017, the vineyard has belonged to the Christmann and Müller-Catoir estates. Its soil consists of shell limestone that was brought to the surface when the Upper Rhine Rift Valley was formed and is unique in this form on the Mittelhaardt. The Vogelsang slopes quite steeply at an inclination of up to 50% grade from 240 meters above sea level to the south. Due to its location at the exit of the Neustadter Tal, there are large temperature differences between day and night, which provide additional tension in the already fresh and elegant, limestone-influenced wines, no matter if Riesling (2023) or Spätburgunder (2022), which are both great wines.”

Stephan Reinhardt, Wine Advocate (03/25)