German Catalog 2006 USE THIS ONE.qxp - Michael Skurnik Wines

RHEINHESSEN WINES
128
wagner-stempel
rheinhessen • siefersheim
We had dinner with Daniel Wagner and his charming wife Catherin, and after dinner Daniel
pressed a bottle into my hand. It was his 2003 Spätburgunder, which he suggested I open at some
point. Then it was three weeks later, the final evening with Strubs, and we were hanging out in
the kitchen and I found the bottle on the back seat of the car; it had been heated and chilled and
bounced to Champagne and back and all over the Rhineland, but what the hell, I said I’d taste
it. It was the damn best German red wine I’d ever tasted, elegant, grown-up, balanced, loaded. And
I found myself wondering, CAN THIS GUY MAKE AN ORDINARY WINE?
Ladies ‘n gents; sybarites of every stripe, inccubi and succubi, pointers and setters, Mars’ and
Venus,’ step right up, for I have a prediction:
This estate will be the next superstar in the Rheinhessen.
I owe the discovery to Alex Gysler, and his “Message
In A Bottle” poster, and his answer to my question “Is
there anyone in this group of particular interest to me?”
A few months later I sat at home tasting through a halfdozen
samples, and with the first sip of the first wine (the
2002 “Riesling from Porphyry”) I had the AH-HA!
moment.
The estate is 12.5 hectares, in the westernmost district
of Rheinhessen, near Bernhard. Soils vary, but
there’s a significant vein of porphyry like the great soils
of the Nahe (which is just a hop skip & jump over the
hill), and there are times I think the world’s greatest rieslings
grow on volcanic soil in general and porphyry in
particular. And young Mr. Wagner has baskets of various
soils in his tasting room, and has all his riesling-comprising
50% of his vineyards-is planted on porphyry.
There were times I thought I was drinking the very
best of Crusius’ wines.
Daniel Wagner
•Vineyard area: 13 hectares
•Annual production: 7,000 cases
•Top sites: Siefersheimer Höllberg and
Heerkretz
•Soil types: Volcanic material (porphyry and
melaphyre)
•Grape varieties: 50% Riesling, 25% Burgunder,
15% Silvaner, 10% Spätburgunder
Wagner’s first vintage was 1993. He arrived at the
apex of the dry-wave and has only recently started making
any rieslings with sweetness — I hope to provide
encouragement in this direction!
The land is steeper here than in much of the
Rheinhessen, and Wagner does 95% of his harvest by
hand. Most musts are clarified by gravity, though some
are fermented as-is. His basic-quality wines are made in
stainless steel, but like many young vintners he’s leaning
toward more old oak for the top rieslings. Similarly he
ferments with cultured yeasts for the basic wines and
with natural yeasts for the best rieslings. Most wines sit on
the gross lees till February. All of this reveals a characteristic
degree of thoughtfulness and flexibility for a young
quality-minded vintner.
He’s a self-described acid-freak, but also prizes
minerality and “tannin in a subtle form,” indicating this
vintner prizes structure above all things. He has the luxury
to do so, because the wines from his beloved
Heerkretz (the steepest and highest-elevated site in
Rheinhessen) and Höllberg show astonishing natural
fruit in a stirring melange of Nahe complexity with
Rheinhessen muscle.
He’s clearly the rising star — I would say the risen
star — of his region, and he has a lot coming at him not