"It is Our Best Vintage" - One of Germany's Top Wines, Hergott GG. Nuff Said

Personal Note: I've spent the last decade of my life tasting the top German wines and explaining to
American wine drinkers that the best of these wines are among the greatest white wines in the world.  Because they are less appreciated globally than their brethren in France, they are still incredible values.  In my opinion, you owe it to yourself to try this wine.

I've never seen or heard Carolin Kuhling-Gillot be this excited. This enthusiastic. In the short 3 years that I have worked with her husband (H.O. Spanier) and her (she does all the marketing and sales for her winery, Kuhling-Gillot and Battenfeld Spanier) she has shot to the top of the quality hierarchy in the Rheinhessen. Before I started working with Battenfeld it was Keller and everybody else, and since I've started to work with Battenfeld they are firmly in the conversation as one of the top 3-5 dry Riesling producers in Germany. If there is one word to describe the wines it is HARMONY. Nothing is ever out of place. These wines have some of the best balance of any white wines in the world. Buddhists drink this stuff to get balanced when they feel out of balance. And each year they have ratcheted up the quality, and dare I say that in 2015, it might the best collection of dry Riesling in Germany. I said it and I believe it. When I emailed Carolin, to tell her I was offering the '15 Hergott today, she said it is perfect wine, but gave it a "99" as it will improve with 5-10 years of age. This is the wine that made me fall in love with the estate. I remember it like yesterday tasting that wine (the 2010 or 2011 or maybe both!) with her father and just being floored at how dramatic and intense it was all the while screeching with ebullient limestone on the palate and the aroma. But also there is a crisp, clean and tropical element that is so classically Wonnegau (larger area her vineyards are in, like Sonoma County or the Langhe) which I feel Battenfeld Spanier displays better than anyone I've tasted. They are setting a new standard. The 2013/2014/2015 is like Let It Bleed/Sticky Fingers/Exile on Main Street and any true Stones fan knows that Exile on Main Street is the best of those 3 albums but the other two are damn great. That's how 2015 is in relation to 2013 and 2014.

Today I have the 2015 Battenfeld Spanier Zellerweg am Schwarzen en Hergott Riesling Grosses Gewachs for as little as $49.99 a 3-pack. 

For those of you who love Mölsheim listen up as this is essentially Mölsheim Alte Reben in that Mölsheim is young vines Hergott. But one thing is for sure it is all limestone, baby.

The '15 has stunning fruit. It's probably the most perfect Riesling fruit for me, since 2001. It's perfect. That's all. Vivid, perfectly ripe, crunchy, fleshy, deep, layered. Really it's gotta be tasted to be believed. And yet there is also acidity. And really great acidity, not epic acidity like '01 '08, '10 '96, but really great acidity like '07, '02, '04. Acid is everything in Riesling to me and I talk about it a lot. When you have fruit this glorious I'm happy the acid is not at 08 or 96 levels as the harmony might not be there like it is in 2015. And OMG that depth. The 2015 Hergott GG leaps out of the glass with huge precise limestone aromas. The nose has a touch of those sponti aromas from wild yeasts and beguiling, insanely complex minerality. Your palate is assaulted by waves of fruit, minerality and acidity.  It changes constantly in the glass and ideally I find after it is delivered, it needs 1 year to start drinking well. These will start to really groove in Fall 2018. It is just perfect. Everything I want out of my Rheinhessen Riesling GG's. Balance, purity, concentration, great acids, a wealth of fruit and huge sicko twisted awesome and distinct minerality that only limestone brings.

The elegance and finesse of this wine are Grand Cru all the way. It is so balanced it has a zen-like effect on the drinker. Truly a "Serenity Now" wine if I have ever had one. And tension. The Hergott exhibits some of the best tension of any GG I have ever had. That is the balance between fruit and acid. Also the depth on this wine is incomparable.  It has elegance and finesse that the GG name suggests and the 15 has a juicy fabulous structure. We are talking a 45 second finish. Longer.

While you can enjoy them young, these are wines that will age for years.  The 12 is drinking great now and will for 5-7 more years and the 13 is fun to drink if you like full throttle wines. The '14 is surprisingly approachable now. I know I do and killing a 14 the other week was damn near religious. I don't like opening these up with other wines as it is a meditation wine and should be the sole focal vinous point of the night as it is so complex and ever changing.

2015 Battenfeld-Spanier Zellerweg Am Schwarzen en Hergott GG - $52.99 ($149.97 3-pack) (LIMITED)