20213041_WGDE2021_ENGL

KOLLEKTION DES JAHRES 2020
Stefanie und Fabian Lassak betreiben auf
nur drei Hektar Rebfläche seit 2016 ein
kleines, feines Manufaktur-Weingut
MORE THAN JUST
HIGH SCORES
Our ‘Wine Range of the Year‘ should embody various attributes: Individuality,
style, a certain seamlessness, reliability. Just a handful of extraordinarily
successful wines are not enough. With the wines from the 2019 vintage,
Cornelius Dönnhoff does justice to all these points - in outstanding fashion.
WORDS ULRICH SAUTTER
Photos: Stefan Haehnel, Photography was provided
Dönnhoff’s current wines meet
the very first of the above
criteria with distinction. The
wines are as individual as the
sites in which they originate. In this
regard, Dönnhoff continues in his father
Helmut’s vein: never force anything on the
wines but allow diligent and careful work
in the vineyard to become the foundation
of genuine – and individual – site expression.
It is exemplary, however, how Cornelius
Dönnhoff has managed not to disappear
in his father Helmut Dönnhoff’s rather
large footsteps – and this takes us straight
to the question of style: Cornelius
Dönnhoff’s current Rieslings set new
standards – well beyond the confines of
the Nahe region – in terms of freshness,
elegance and mineral depth. When he first
took the reins at this family estate in
Oberhausen, you might have thought that
his versions of Dellchen, Felsenberg and
Hermannshöhle were just a little more dry
than before but since then, and certainly
with his 2019 vintage, it becomes clear:
more dry, yes, but also pithier, even richer
in detail and pervaded by almost incredible
tension. Helmut Dönnhoff will be able to
take these statements in his stride because
his own wines already were, and still are,
in a class of their own, quite regardless of
the fact that his son has now catapulted
them into a new age in thrilling fashion.
The next criterion: a certain seamlessness.
Cornelius Dönnhoff’s 2019 range of wines
gives the impression that each wine is
positioned exactly where it should be. The
Grosse Gewächse are clearly distinct from
19