GG Monzinger Halenberg - Riesling

Riesling | GG Monzinger Halenberg | top grand cru | kwartsiet en blauwe leisteen | diepe mineraliteit | wijn die de komende 20 jaar alleen maar beter wordt | verfijning | precisie | mineraliteit | intens

Emrich-Schönleber

Frank en Werner Schönleber bottelen pas sinds 2001 onder hun eigen label en behoren sindsdien tot de absolute elite van de Duitse Rieslingproducenten van de afgelopen 10 jaar. Een mix van leisteen en quarzit, de warme zomerdagen en koude nachten, maken  de omstandigheden perfect om Riesling te verbouwen. Wat resulteert in wijnen met enorme precisie, diepte en een rijke mineralig expressie! Een prachtige aanwinst op het assortiment van Smaragd wijnen!

Review

Schönleber's 2019 Halenberg GG is ripe and intense on the nose and indicates a rich and powerful yet elegant and complex Riesling with darker tones and flinty aromas that become more evident with aeration, while the initially intense fruit aroma gets reduced. On the palate, this is a rich and textured, pretty juicy but structured Halenberg with fine tannins and a long and intense finish. Compared to the Frühlingsplätzchen, the Halenberg is always late in its development, but as in 2018, I tend to prefer the former from the 2019 vintage at least in its very youth. For now, the Halenberg seems to be very ripe and rich and is structured by tannins rather than the crystallinity of the terroir. Tasted as a sample in May 2020 and I’m already excited to learn how the wine will develop in the coming weeks. 95-96+/100 Stephen Reinhardt

In spring this year, in my "Corona studio" in Bremen, Germany, I tasted only a fraction of the wines produced by Frank Schönleber. The 2019 grands crus were so promising that readers should be prepared to buy some of the finest dry Rieslings ever produced here. The 2019 GG Rieslings are so incredibly complex and powerful—but also tensioned and long—that I cannot think of a similar vintage in the past 20 years. 2015 was close, but the acidity was higher and even more vibrant. The 2019s, however, combine features of a cooler vintage (purity and freshness) with those of a warm year (ripe and concentrated fruit combined with power and structure). 2009 could be another relative in terms of ripeness, but it didn't have the same acidity. 2019 is perhaps something in between 2015 and 2009. In 2019, Frank Schönleber could pick everything he liked to pick except TBA. In the Frühlingsplätzchen and the Halenberg, all the other predicates were selected: Spätlese, Auslese and Beerenauslese. And certainly the Grosses Gewächs Rieslings, of which the Halenberg is still a bit mighty and solemn, but as it's grown on blue slate, it is always a late starter. The Frühlingsplätzchen GG, from clayish red slate soils with quartzite and even blue slate parts, is already absolutely exciting in its youth and reveals great purity, precision and crystalline finesse as well as complexity and length. It's doubtlessly my favorite GG this year here. The 2019 Auf der Ley GG, from the top of the Halenberg, is possibly the greatest of the trio, but you have to bid for it at auction in Bad Kreuznach in September this year; and most probably, you will have to pay quite a lot for this impressive rarity. The new 1er cru Niederberg comes from the eastern part of Monzingen, which was added to the original Frühlingsplätzchen west of the commune in 1971 and, coming from 40-year-old vines, closes the gap between the Riesling Trocken Mineral and the GG. The main harvest started in early October 2019 and went for about three weeks. Only the Pinots (Blanc and Gris), as well as some pre-selections of Riesling and for sparkling wine, were picked in September. The grapes for the late-harvested wines were slightly crushed and macerated for three to six hours prior to pressing. The cleared musts were then fermented in either large oak vats (the village wines and the crus) or stainless steel (everything below as well as the predicates). Like what happened in 2018, in 2019 some musts also did not ferment as quickly as they should, so Frank inoculated them with already-fermenting musts. The bottling took place in April and, for the grands crus, in late May. I will be curious to taste the GGs again later this summer, whereas I don't have any idea when I will manage to taste the predicates, the Pinots and the other Rieslings, such as the 2018 Halenberg R. In any case, you won't miss it as soon as I have tasted those.