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

PFALZ WINES
176
kurt darting
pfalz • bad-dürkheim
Here’s a paradox: in the whomping-ripe 2005 vintage, Dartings had a difficult time getting
grapes above 90º, “because we couldn’t let them hang long enough.” The Dürkheim area was
especially prone to (not always noble) rot in the warm weather that followed the big early
October rains. Botrytis is therefore a factor in Darting’s `05, yet one senses they’ve learned a great
deal since 2000, as these wines were cleaner and purer than the last similar vintage.
It’s like a runaway train, this agency.When things work this well it always seems so easy; why
can’t everybody do it? The ingredients are simple. Outstanding wines at attractive prices.
Flexibility in the working relationship. Collegiality in tasting and evaluating the wines. Basic
and spontaneous friendliness. Tasting with Helmut you are instantly aware he likes wine, likes
making it, likes tasting it, likes thinking about it, is
entirely FOND of it. Even with the growers, I’m never
entirely sure how much of my heart to reveal when I
taste their wines, but with Helmut Darting I can giggle or
weep or dance the shimmy.
Until a few years ago the estate was divided between
husband and wife, one of whom belonged to the local coop.
With Helmut Darting’s arrival, the two estates were
combined and all the wines estate-bottled. Helmut had an
interesting year of apprenticeship as part of his wine
schooling: at Müller-Catoir! Now, plenty of young dudes
spend time at Catoir, a few each year. The estate is an official
“Meisterbetrieb” meaning that students and apprentices
may be sent here. I once asked Hans-Günter Schwarz
if it wouldn’t be possible (theoretically!) to track down all
the up-and-coming new superstars by following his various
apprentices. His answer surprised me. “Actually, no,”
he said, “because I don’t always develop a rapport or
sympathy with the young men. It seems to take a special
type to want to do things this way!” With Helmut Darting
it appears to have been a case of simpatico instantaneoso.
Schwarz even gave permission for his pricelist text to be
used, in which he describes his rules of vinification,
which is how, when I saw it reproduced verbatim on
Helmut Darting
•Vineyard area: 17 hectares
•Annual production: 12,500 cases
•Top sites: Dürkheimer Michelsberg, Spielberg
and Hochbenn, Ungsteiner Herrenberg
•Soil types: Heavy chalky loam, sandy gravel,
loess and loam
•Grape varieties: 44% Riesling, 8% Weissburgunder,
6% Rieslaner, 5% Scheurebe,
4% each Portugieser, Muskateller & Ortega,
3% each Chardonnay & Spätburgunder,
19% other varieties
Darting’s list, I knew Something Was Up.
If you’re unfamiliar with the reductivist’s creed, it
goes a little like this: every time you handle a wine, you
diminish it; therefore minimal “winemaking” above all!
The most important thing is to grow superb grapes and
let their flavors sing out in the wine. You ferment as slow
and cold as possible, with natural yeasts. You rack once
and once only, after fermentation. You keep the wine
away from oxygen at all costs. After the first racking, the
next time you handle the wine is to bottle it.
No fining, no clarification, no de-acidification,
Süssreserve only when no alternative avails, and then
only a high-grade Süssreserve, itself made reductively.
All of this results in wine in which the original grape
character is preserved with an almost unreal clarity.
Darting has arrived among the “classified” estates in
Germany, yet wonderful as this is, I can’t help but wonder
what kind of wines they’d make if they owned land
in the classic sites of Deidesheim, Forst and Wachenheim.
We need someone sensible there to yawp against the dryat-all-costs
insanity.