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

RHEINGAU WINES
142
josef leitz
rheingau • rüdesheim
I think Johannes Leitz should grow a beard or something, so he can start looking his age. I first
met him as a “big baby” of about 25 and now he’s a man of 40. A big baby of 40!
He’s also up to a whopping 26 hectares, in large part in order to supply us with enough
“Dragonstone,” but also because success accrues to success and good growers often find access
to good land. Johannes has secured parcels in two fascinating sites hovering just above
Rüdesheim, which he will see through an entire cycle this year. The first wine, a Kabinett, was
a promising maiden-voyage, somewhat Geisenheimer Rothenberg in style, with lovely fragrance.
Look for “Rüdesheimer Rosengarten” in future offerings.
Some of you know Johannes better than even I do; he visits us regularly and makes friends
wherever he goes.
And parties wherever he goes . . . . Yet I must say I
like best of all to see him there, at home, lord-of-themanor,
because being an international-wine-guy can
obscure some of what gets you there — any clod can
climb on a plane — and what got Johannes Leitz there
was connectedness to his land and honesty in his winery.
A Rheingauer making wines this stellar could easily
ask double these prices. Could drib-and-drab them out in
crumbs to make them seem more precious. Could sit in
his ivory tower waiting for the world to beat a path to his
door. My friend Johannes has the biggest heart I think I
have ever seen. He supplies me as a friend and encourages
a companionable partnership to which every other
business relationship should aspire.
When I made my first approach to Johennes Leitz
(15 years ago!) I found a sober young man still not out of
his twenties, running a 5.8 hectare estate. His father had
passed away when Johannes was a year old, and his
mother resolutely maintained the winery until Johannes
was old enough to hand it over to. He accelerated his
studies by doing the basic courses at Eltville rather than
the grand chi-chi at Geisenheim. He got home in the nick
of time. The winery had survived, but barely. And it was
frozen in time 18 years earlier. Johannes would need to
Johannes Leitz
•Vineyard area: 26 hectares
•Annual production: 10,000 cases
•Top sites: Rüdesheimer Berg Schlossberg,
Berg Roseneck, Berg Rottland and Berg
Kaisersteinfels
•Soil types: Weathered gray and red slates,
sandy loam and loess, chalk and quarzite
•Grape varieties: 100% Riesling
invest, soon, a lot. Johannes was determined to make
great wine.
He’s a man with a passion for aroma. “I almost prefer
inhaling to actual tasting,” he says. “I can’t really love
a wine regardless of how it tastes if it doesn’t excite me
on the nose. I want my own wines to seem more fragrant
than the norm, fruitier and more harmonious. They
should simply be better!” Leitz insists that “Wine grows in
the vineyard; it isn’t made in the cellar. There’s no question
that different soils give different flavors. Anyone
who tastes a Berg Schlossberg, with its high proportion
of slate, alongside a Bischofsberg, will taste the importance
of soil in a hurry!”
“I work very clean,” he says, echoing the one refrain
you hear in every good estate. “My friends call me finicky
about cleanliness,” he continues. “I also try to disturb the
wine as little as possible, pumping for instance.” On the
subject of Trocken wine, Johannes can speak with authority,
having earned the right by making many of the greatest
dry German wines I have ever tasted. “I’m of the opinion
that during the dry wave a lot of wines were made dry
that weren’t in any way suited for dry wine. You really
need a certain kind of base wine to make a good Trocken.
If you’re honest about it, there’s probably no more than,
say, thirty percent of any cellar that fits. The rest would be
better with a few grams or more of sweetness.” He also