2005 Germany Vintage Report

GERMANY 2005: Golden October (Mosel and Saar) by The Wine Advocate

When I arrived in Germany the last day of July, 2005, I quickly encountered a consensus regarding the evolving crop. "It can't end up being any less than good," was what I heard and what my walks in the vineyards confirmed. The vines were in robust health, having not experienced the stress from heat and drought that has become such a familiar feature of recent vintages. Pest pressures were low. Maturation was a week or two ahead of long-term averages. The crop was small, bunches generally loose, and the berries relatively small. It seemed impossible to imagine a scenario that would nullify such potential. As it turned out, Mother Nature sorely tested that hypothesis. The day after I arrived, it turned cool and rainy. Most growers welcomed this as insurance against vine stress. But I did not see sunshine again for fifteen days, and the growers little of it for more than a month. In the end, 2005 became not just a good vintage but an outstanding one and for many growers a great vintage. The weather warmed and brightened in September, but in the middle of that month, widespread, heavy rainfall precipitated early and unwelcome botrytis in warmer regions, even with normally late-ripening Riesling. The relatively cool Mosel, Saar and Ruwer benefitted at this point from having Riesling skins less ripe and susceptible to rot, and steep, well-drained and -ventilated vineyards.

Even during a relatively cool, rainy period in late summer, vines do not merely mark time. A considerable amount of phenolic maturation and gradual accretion of sugar takes place. And well watered conditions are always associated with high extract. If one takes the broad view, insists Thomas Haag, "the growing season, which was a constant mix of warmth, rain, cool periods, and sunshine, all bringing us in around average" at the onset of harvest, was a source of the complexity and balance, the density and sheer juiciness in the resultant wines. "It was a good thing that the summer was not too hot," says Willi Schaefer. "If it had been hot, the wines would have been too heavy and filled one up too quickly." As Hans-Leo Christophel of Ürzig says, "With Riesling it can rain all it wants" – particularly, if the weather is cool –"provided that eventually the sun returns." In 2005, it returned for an entire, glorious month of October. Those regions and growers whose grapes had avoided botrytis until that point were in a position to wait a week or two before harvesting, and gradually a noble botrytis evolved that would for many growers become the hallmark of the vintage. Levels of acidity were generally healthy, but in the course of the month, growers' experiences diverged. Most found their grapes losing acidity in the warm weather, but in some areas, particularly on the Mosel, Saar and Ruwer, something unusually felicitous happened.

"At the beginning of October," relates Hanno Zilliken of the Saar, "we had golden yellow fruits with thin skins. We put great stock in botrytis and we stopped spraying early because we want botrytis. The skins of our grapes were very sensitive when the warm breezes arrived and so they shriveled. There wasn't a drop of rain for nearly three weeks, and that makes for the straight character of the wines." Zilliken recorded rapid, record-shattering accumulations of sugar, but also acidity as he picked throughout the warm, dry period. "There was lots of sun and lots of wind," relates Bernhard Schug of Dr. Loosen, "and we had shriveling of healthy, golden berries. I've never seen this before – in the Wachau, yes, but not here in Germany." Why this phenomenon was not more widespread – and in particular why it was experienced at the same time when many other growers' grapes were rapidly losing acidity – I cannot explain, but certainly the health of the fruit going into October as well as the ability to complete the harvest by the end of that month were critical factors. It is in instances where this concentration of sugars and acidity went hand in hand that many of the greatest wines of vintage 2005 were harvested.

Typically, sugar levels were uniformly high, with relatively insignificant differences in Oechsle separating what was chosen to bottle as Kabinett, Spätlese, or Auslese until one set about selectively picking for botrytis, at which point astronomical levels of sugar were possible, and indeed there has seldom been a vintage – not even torrid 2003 – in which so many Riesling Trockenbeerenauslesen were harvested. Widely forecast rain at the beginning of November created a challenge for the many growers who had fruit left to gather and botrytis already rapidly spreading. There was a great rush by many to finish picking, indeed, several told me they were too rushed to reflect on just how high a quality of fruit they were in fact harvesting. (But soon after the wines began fermenting, they started getting goose bumps.) Some toughed out this period and harvested fascinating wines until the middle of November, but scant few of the most striking wines of the vintage were picked then. As testimony to the rapidly deteriorating conditions, scarcely any grapes were left hanging this year in anticipation of Eiswein, and the rare instances bottled were seldom successes. "Botrytis is what made the character of the year," says Daniel Vollenweider, and to the extent that this was the case, it is hardly surprising that there would be variations in quality from site to site and wine to wine corresponding to the capricious and two-sided nature of rot, noble or ignoble. Many experienced growers, though, remarked on some of the finest botrytis since 1971 and bottled superb testimonies to that assessment. Johannes Selbach did not argue about it's quality, but only its importance for the vintage. "To me, this is not really a botrytis year," he asserted, pointing out that in the best cases only a fine dusting of botrytis affected fruit already concentrated and in some instances desiccated. "Botrytis," he concludes, "was just the icing on the cake. The principle carriers of flavor were juicy golden berries."

Sheer abundance of sugar did not always mean good fortune. At times, dry 2005s betray their higher than normal alcohol in heat. Sheer excess of sugar in the grapes could present an impediment to liveliness or elegance in the finished wines, with Auslesen routinely pushing 10% alcohol and still possessed of residual sugar that their remaining acids had difficulty in taming. "One could easily handle an extra percentage point of alcohol in 2005," asserts Thomas Haag, whose wines were noticeably high in residual sugar, "but one dared not push it." In the main though – particularly along the Mosel, Saar and Ruwer – we have a vintage capable of achieving, as Thomas Haag continued, "a perfect combination of huge concentration, density, and sap on one hand, and, on the other, wonderfully ripe acidity with interplay of flavors, elegance, and finesse." This marriage of richness with elegance, density with lightness of touch has made for many wonderful, ageworthy Rieslings that should take their place among the best vintages of recent times. Where acid levels were concentrated through desiccation, one encounters wines of Eiswein-like clarity and construction. But even in the more common instances where acid levels were marginal, as veteran Moselaner Bruno Schmitt (who didn't begin harvesting until the third week in October) remarked, "You can still feel the acidity in the finish of these wines," lending the best of them infectious juiciness and vivacity.

Whether through air drying or botrytis, the crop was significantly reduced during October from its already modest-to short levels. (Erratic flowering, frost, and hail had been the spring culprits.) In the final analysis, yields were typically down by 25-35% among top Riesling growers. This, plus the quality of the resultant wines, has put pressure on prices, and on consumers to purchase early in order to secure the ostensibly top wines of the vintage. A not insignificant number of the best wines in the upper echelons of Prädikat, however, will not be released until late 2006 or in 2007. And given what I have observed both of the time it takes to get wines to the U.S. market under the best of circumstances and the large number of often outstanding 2004 vintage Rieslings still in the marketplace, Isuspect it would be foolish to panic save in the case of wines from a few small, superstar estates. Quality at most of the best Mosel-Saar-Ruwer addresses is so consistently high that there is an embarrassment of gems from which to choose.

Exciting though the 2005 vintage is, it would be wise to view if from a perspective unique in the long and well-recorded history of German viticulture. The last time there was a vintage when sugar levels dipped below the long-term average was 1987. Since then, viewed from a pre-1988 or 100-year perspective we have had nothing but vintages in which all of the Rieslings are above average, at least in must weight. (2000 is the only poor vintage since 1987, but not for lack of sugar!) "When I began growing here twenty-five years ago," remarks first generation vintner Erich Weber of the Saar (where 2005 has turned out especially well), "we had on average 1,100 hours of sunshine and if we had more than 1,200 that was a lot. Last year, we had 2,100 hours. We're "Saar-Tuscany?!"

The notes that follow cover the Saar and Mosel. Because of the overwhelming number of successful performances in Germany's "green bottle" regions, the balance of my notes from the Mosel and those from the Ruwer will appear in a later issue, along with notes on wines from the Mittelrhein, Nahe, Rheingau, Rheinhessen and Pfalz growing regions. All of the wines covered – with the exception of several collections sent to me as samples – were tasted in the course of my late July and August visits to 84 German estates and are generally listed in the order in which I was presented them. Following standard Wine Advocate conventions, wines tasted prior to bottling are given a parenthetic point spread rather than a specific score. Those seeking clues for unraveling the often lamentably convoluted nomenclature of German wine are urged to consult page 49 of Issue #161.
—David Schildknecht