20213041_WGDE2021_ENGL

AHR | A PORTRAIT OF THE REGION
desire for freshness. Deutzerhof, recently
under new ownership, is an excellent
example of a style that seeks and manages
to bridge the two poles. In any case, the
two Ahr estates best known outside the
region have long defined their stylistic
crux via a rather individual balance
between ripeness on the one hand and
structure and freshness on the other. If
mineral juiciness is at the core of Meike
and Dörte Näkel’s wines today, it is only a
refinement of what always was important
to their father Werner, too: the piquancy of
fruit and its luminosity. For Alexander
Stodden, however, it is all about finesse –
about proving that the Ahr is capable of
dissolving the material into the ethereal
and still remain expressive. All of these
reflections were already central when the
2018 vintage arrived with its opulent
warmth. As the Falstaff team was tasting
its way through the Ahr wines of this
vintage, one thought became almost
inescapable; that this vintage arrived at
just the right point for the Ahr winemakers,
during a phase of great mental agility. No
matter where each individual estate staked
its preference on the spectrum between
ripeness and freshness, none of the wines
are the result of chance. Even the riper
Paul Schumacher just wants to harvest the best
possible fruit and give his wines the time they need
wines, bear no resemblance to the hot,
jammy wines of the 2003 vintage, not even
the earlier ripening Frühburgunder (aka
Pinot Noir Précoce). What we get instead is
an extraordinary, even spectacular intensity
of fruit, which reflects the warmth within,
but also embraces a particular homogenous
ripeness. At the same time, the wines possess
exactly that depth, that absolute expression,
that extract which can only be achieved
through wise and painstaking viticulture.
Photos: schmidtchen & partner Werbeagentur GmbH, Bernd Schreiner
Weingut Deutzerhof - this estate
can trace its history to the 16th century
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