"If Andi will not become a Top Winemaker I will be an idiot."
Stuart Pigott
Andi Schneider Has Joined The Club
- Totally Different Style from Frohlich and Donhoff
- Refined Nahe Fruit But with Thunderous Minerality
- Some of the Craziest Values I Sell...from Anywhere
2016 K.H. Schneider Domberg Riesling Trocken
- The Epitome of Schneider Style
- Remarkable Density
- So Mineral, It's Almost SAvory
- Huge Mouthfeel
- A Riesling That Reminds You of the Greatness of Riesling
- Grand Cru Quality for Under $30
- 93 Points (Stuart Pigott)
2016 K.H. Schneider Domberg Riesling Spatlese
- One of the Most Elegant, Mineral Spatlesen I Sell
- JUICY Like You Won't Believe!
- Incredible Value at $24.99: 93 Points (Stuart Pigott)
- This is Pradikat Wine but Juaxtaposes DRY/SWEET So Well
2017 K.H Sauvignon Blanc Trocken
- My Favorite German Sauvignon Blanc
- Remarkably Mineral, Elegant and Balanced
- One Foot In Nahe, One Foot In Chavignol
- What You Want for Your Under $22 S.B. Fix
If I've got one producer amongst my German Riesling producers that had risen to the top except he hasn't quite gotten the right acclaim (and price per bottle) it's Andi Schneider. That has now changed (the acclaim part). Andi has gotten huge score love from Stuart Piggot who has forgotten more about German wine than I will ever know. That counts for a lot to be honest as I fondly remember drinking many a great Riesling with Stuart at an epic after party one night where he supplied the wines from his own cellar. I've also attends many seminars he has hosted on German Riesling. In Germany he is as respected as Parker was at his highest influence in America. He is the one who actually introduced me to Andi Schneider's wines through something he had written a few years back about Andi Schneider and he said in his own inimitable way,
Andi kind of reminds a bit of the position that Hofgut Falkenstein was in for many years before he was catapulted into fame. Andi Schneider is in a better position than Falkenstein was in when I was selling them on the Upper East Side. Andi has been given very high praise and write-ups by Stuart
Piggot for his 2016s and 2015s. His 2016 dry wines are stunning examples of Andi's electric moneral, high acid style. These wines will wake you up. It's Nahe so the fruit is more red/white cherries and a bit riper, but honestly when these wines are young, the fruit is not really what they are about. They are about terroir, the amazing energy of Riesling and the insane minerality of Andi's special nook in Sobernheim which is not as famous as Bockenau or Niederhausen but that will change. Andi is putting Sobernheim on the map. These are amongst the best values we sell. Especially with Stuart's reviews.
A Brief Note on Andi's 2016s
It's a brilliant vintage for Riesling in the Nahe/Mosel as evidenced by Stephan Rheinhardt's recent Mosel 2016 report and David Schidknecht's 2016 Nahe report. It's especially great as many 2015s are slammed shut which likely will be the story for the next 5 years.
I don't know if many of you have had the 12 Marbach or Domberg recently but I highly recommend opening a bottle as these are drinking terrific right now and starting to show the insane fruit Andi can get. It takes time though. I had '07 and '09 Marbach as well at the estate and they were both stunning. Age is this wine's friend. Now in 2016, he has made the best wines in his own style. Andi seems to contain the ripeness of the Nahe and express the thunderous minerality in a unique and striking way. There is a deft purity to these incredibly crafted wines. He also has rip roaring high acids like Muellen or Schätzel. He is using 100% spontaneous yeasts and ages his wines in old large oak barrels. They have a texture to them that is like nothing else. Dense and pithy but so elegant and weightless and with an electric acid backbone. So detailed. I love drinking these wines and they last incredibly long. Andi made his most elegant and weightless wines in 2014 and then in 2015 he crushed it and made massive wines that will need longer than normal. He has outdone himself in 2016. He has a longer elevage than most and his "GG" wines have just been bottled in the last few months. Along with Martin Muellen in the Mosel, Andi Schneider is making Grand Cru wines for a song. A pittance. The prices are criminal as Andi is NOT in the VDP which means his wines are seriously underpriced. Producers making world class wine from Grand Cru sites that are not in the VDP are where the value is at in German Dry Riesling today.
The Wines
Up first is the 2016 K.H. Schneider Domberg Riesling Trocken for $29.99 a bottle on a 4-Pack. This is Grosses Gewachs/Grand Cru quality from a site that Andi is making famous. It is from very poor soils (60-80 cm, slate/quartzite) which makes the vines struggle and produce better, more complex tasting fruit. Small grapes are harvested and they come in very compact bunches which gives the wines great aromas and serious structure, density and backbone. The nose is just ethereal. Beautiful. Super mineral, earthy and rocky with loads of wet stones. Some fresh cut grass and smoke only add to the allure. A hint of fruit but dominated by its quarry like minerality. It's very refined and precise nose. The palate is just an exercise in brilliance and restraint. It's so elegant and refined and has a straight linear quality like fine edges on a piece of modern architecture. The palate is the best German engineering has to offer and there is much more clear-cut Riesling fruit apparent than on the nose. It has the intense acidity one expects but also vivid citrus and white cherry fruit that develops with air. There is also beautiful minerality that really is the star of this wine. Amazing persistence and grip. Extraordinary balance. Complexity and pitter patter tannins. Salty. The length is very impressive and the mineral persistence makes this wine just so special. It is so mineral you will not believe and the massive mineral concentration is off the charts. Unreal wine. This is not a fruit bomb Riesling but lithe, lacey, expressive and sparse. Stuart Piggot gave it 93 points and his review is below.
"The intense herbal and smoky nose marks this out as a very serious dry riesling that's got a ton of terroir character. Thankfully there's also plenty of fruit. Lovely freshness at the long crystalline finish. Drink or hold." 93 Points Stuart Piggot
Now I have the sweet version, the 2016 K.H. Schneider Domberg Riesling Spatlese for $24.99 a bottle on a 4-Pack. This is the first time I'm selling this as I think selling a sweet wine and a dry wine with the same ripeness level is a fascinating exercise. This is an extreme value at $24.99. Got some sponti funk on the nose which I adore. Minerals, minerals, and more minerals. The palate is round and awash in minerals. This wine has HAMMER of GOD levels of incredible acidity and currently is less less about fruit and exceedingly profoundly mineral. It has sweetness obviously but the intense levels of glorious mineral extract is amazing! This is so delicate, so light, yet so intense while being rich and juicy at the same time. Life-affirming and invigorating. This is super elegant and is just like drinking a really delicious feather. This will age gloriously. Stuart Piggot gave this a 93 and his review is below.
"Cool, succulent and herbal this is a lovely Spätlese that has great balance and a very clean long finish that draws you back to the glass for more. Analytically this is medium-sweet, but there's nothing medium about the wine at all! Drink or hold."
93 Pts Stuart Piggot
Up next is the 2017 K.H Sauvignon Blanc Trocken for $21.99 a bottle on a 4-pack. I rarely offer sauvignon blanc because it mostly disappoints me but this is a ridiculously great wine and in a brilliant place now. Sauvignon Blanc is a big deal in Germany. It is typically the first wine to sell out at a winery and sometimes it can be more expensive than fantastic village Rieslings. Having said that all of it is not successful and definitely falls into the 95-5 rule of appreciating anything. 95% of it is not worth your time, while 5% is and that 5% can take a lifetime to appreciate and explore. For German Sauvignon Blanc it is more like 99%/1% for now. I've tasted Sauvignon Blanc across many regions in Germany and by far, for me, the most successful region is the Nahe. There is some promising stuff from Franken but the Nahe is the home of German Sauvignon Blanc.
Sauvignon Blanc can be a very polarizing grape so I can start by telling you what this wine is not to get that out of the way.
It is not offensive.
It is not cat piss, gooseberry or really that much if any fruit aromatically (yay!). Typical Sauvignon Blanc from CA, NZ has aromas that are like 4-dimensional obnoxiousness. If they could aromatize the Kardashian family it would be New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc.
It is not overly fruited.
It is not wooded.
It is not innocuous.
It is not low in acid.
Now to the good part. What is this wine and why is it so good? It is great because it lets the terroir shine through. The most successful German Sauvignon Blancs should have a breakdown of 85% terroir aromas and taste and 15% varietal aromas and taste. Too much Sauvignon Blanc that makes you remember with every sip that you are tasting Sauvignon Blanc is never a good thing. If the Germans put their mind to something they will master it. They made great sweet Riesling and now they are make great dry Riesling. The style here at Schneider is one that is dripping in terroir and in some cases you need a powerful atomic microscope to find the Sauvignon Blanc character. That is a very good thing. Andi's was by far the best I have tasted and it has the terroir of Bad Sobernheim in this wine like a rainbow in a prism. It is so there. So precise. The wine is all about minerality and terroir. It is present in the aromas, the taste, the structure. Everything. There are some hints of grassiness that let you know the Sauvignon Blanc is the grape. The purity is astonishing and there is freshness and persistence that linger and linger. So much finesse and mineral sap. The elegance and class is what impressed me the most. I honestly would rather drink this than any $25 dollar Sancerre and I have a soft spot for Sancerre. Terrific wine and maybe the best Sauvignon Blanc value in a style you did not know existed until you read this e-mail.
2016 K.H. Schneider Riesling Domberg Trocken - $31.99
($119.96 4-pack) (LIMITED)
2016 K.H Schneider Riesling Domberg Spatlese - $26.99
($99.96 4-pack) (LIMITED)
2017 K.H Schneider Sobernheim Sauvignon Blanc - $23.99
($87.96 4-pack) (LIMITED)
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