20213041_WGDE2021_ENGL

Both Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Carl Zuckmayer
had an appreciation for Nierstein wines. Here a view
of the Roter Hang, or Red Slope
RELUCTANT ACCEPTANCE
Rheinhessen claims to be particularly dynamic and innovative. Yet, natural
winemakers are still in defensive mode.
WORDS RAINER SCHÄFER
Harvest on the Roter Hang, or Red
Slope, “came and went in a
fairy-tale fashion,” Kai Schätzel
says. Yet he adamantly refuses to join the
annually recurring proclamation of yet
another ‘vintage of the century’. “Almost
everyone now grows great fruit,” says this
winemaker from Nierstein who also is
deputy chairman of the VDP in Rheinhessen.
Rheinhessen is now seen as a dynamic
region where much change is afoot.
“We basically invented the ‘Jungwinzer’ –
or ‘the young winemaker’,” the 41-yearold
says to whom taking charge comes
quite naturally.
After Rheinhessen’s image was shaped for
a number of years by winemakers like
Klaus Peter Keller und Philipp Wittmann,
Schätzel notes that he now sees “far more
individuality following on from the Keller-
Wittmann-style.” This is not without irony
since Keller and Wittmann were once the
avant-gardists of their time. However,
Schätzel started fermenting wines on their
skins ten years ago. His “oddball” wines
were meant to provoke. Now, he says, he
has enough experience to “make natural
wines as standard.”
The fact that a VDP winemaker dedicates
himself to such a degree to natural wine
may rile his fellow-members in particular
– but for Schätzel this does not constitute
a contradiction. He notes that, after all,
the VDP emerged from the former
Verband Deutscher Naturweinversteigerer
(Association of Natural Wine Auctioneers)
– even though in those days ‘natural’ had
a different definition, it meant unadultered,
unenriched wines, and, says Schätzel,
natural wines reflected current societal
500 falstaff Wine Guide Germany 2021