German Grosses Gewächs releases 2024: World class Pinot and the promise of great Rieslings

In late summer 2024, the winegrowers of the VDP presented their Grosses Gewächs whites from 2023 and reds from 2022 at this year’s tasting in Wiesbaden.

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The annual event

It’s an annual marathon, albeit a seated one, where the only movement comes from lifting your glass.

That’s the essence of the presentation tasting for the new vintages of the Grosses Gewächse (GG) wines.

Only produced by members of the VDP (Verband Deutscher Prädikatsweingüter, the Association of German Prädikat Wine Estates), the release of these ‘grand cru’ level wines is highly anticipated.

This year, the red wines from the 2022 vintage were in the spotlight, while the white wines were predominantly from the 2023 vintage.

Around 200 wine experts from all over the world travelled to Wiesbaden to taste as many GGs as possible over three days.

A total of 462 wines were served in flights of up to six wines, organised by grape variety and origin.

The experts sit in silence from morning to night in the bright colonnades of the Wiesbaden Kurhaus, raising glass after glass, and filling page after page of their notebooks with the ratings.

And at the end of each day, it almost feels like you’ve actually completed a marathon. Each glass seems heavier than the last, as you struggle from flight to flight at an ever slower pace, except that it’s not your muscles that ache but your teeth from all that tartaric acid.

The results made it all worth it though. After 2018, the 2022 vintage is likely the best-ever for German Pinot Noir.

Vintage 2023, on the other hand, was not an easy one for the whites. The range of quality is much wider here.

Only those who accurately committed to early harvest were able to bottle what might be described as more classic wines.

A glimpse into the future

In simple terms, GGs refer to the best dry wines from the finest sites. They are rare, comprising only 0.4% of the total wine production of the country.

Moreover, they are not cheap, with an average price of around €49 a bottle. White wines can be released to the market from 1 September of the year following harvest, while red wines are available on 1 September after two years.

It is not easy to taste these young wines now, let alone to assess them. After all, the Grosse Gewächse are called so because they usually harbour great potential for development.

They often need years before they reveal all their facets and show their best side. The chief reason for tasting them so young is how hard they would be to find later.

Given this, the tasting in Wiesbaden can only be a snapshot – a glimpse into the future.

The verdict: 2022 reds

The 2022 vintage was notably warm and dry, which benefited the red wines, particularly Spätburgunder (Pinot Noir) and Lemberger.

‘It was the best vintage for red wines that we ever experienced in Germany,’ recalled Klaus Peter Keller.

‘Even finer than 2018, because it was not quite as hot and the aromatic ripeness progressed more slowly and the sugar value did not increase excessively this time.’

Keller’s 2022 Pinot Noir from the Morstein vineyard is one of the best. Its resemblance to Burgundy is marked; it reminds me of a Gevrey-Chambertin – the wine is simply world-class.

The wines from the Centgrafenberg and Hundsrück vineyards of the Rudolf Fürst winery are also among the finest Pinot Noirs: elegant and radiantly beautiful, with tannins so silky that they seem to be wearing a dinner jacket.

Julian Huber from the Bernhard Huber winery in Baden is also no slouch with his Schlossberg and Wildenstein from the Bienenberg.

However, his wines appear more modern and determined, flirting with a slight reduction that cloaks the fruit of cherries and raspberries in graphite and cold smoke.

For the first time in 2022, a Pinot Noir from the Mosel also ranks among the top wines: Maximin Grünhaus’ Abtsberg with its polished, international style.

The verdict: 2023 whites

In contrast, 2023 proved to be more challenging for white wines. First, there was drought in spring, followed by persistent rain and warm temperatures that encouraged fungal diseases.

The weather stabilised in September, leading to a super-fast harvest, as everything was suddenly ripe at the same time.

Manual labour was necessary to sort and harvest healthy grapes. Throughout the summer of 2023, the employees of Tim Fröhlich at Schäfer-Fröhlich were kept on their toes constantly.

With the rain promoting foliage growth, the leaves in the fruit zone had to be removed repeatedly.

And the hard work put in by winemakers such as Tim Fröhlich and Hansjörg Rebholz certainly paid off in their wines.

The 2023 Felseneck and Kastanienbusch Rieslings from each respectively are exceptional wines, already displaying the promise of future greatness.

The best of the best also included the 2023 Treppchen (still a barrel sample) from Weingut Dr. Loosen on the Mosel: intense, still quite young, but already polished.

Other top producers who shone include: Weil and Künstler in the Rheingau, Kühling-Gillot and Wittmann in Rheinhessen, and Battenfeld Spanier, Philipp Kuhn, and Christmann in the Pfalz.

A newcomer among my favourites is the Kalmit GG from Weingut Kranz, which is an absolute bargain among the top wines.

Although the 2023 white wines need choosing with care, anyone who buys them now with an eye to drinking them in 10 years’ time can look forward to a great return on investment.

Best of the new Grosses Gewächs releases

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