WINE ADVOCATE - 91 POINTS The 2021 Weissburgunder & Chardonnay Stückfass offers a clear, bright and elegant bouquet with delicate lemon juice notes and beautiful purity. Light and refined on the palate, this is a very elegant and balanced field blend with mouth-tickling salinity and phenolic grip that leads to a delicate, light and intense finish with very fine, virtually hidden tannins. This is a delicate white to have with fish. 12% stated alcohol. Screw cap. Tasted in July 2022.
2021 is, after a long time, once again a classic vintage, something Cornelius Dönnhoff has not had in this century, but for his father Helmut, a harvest in late October and November was still common. The harvest at Dönnhoff was a good two or three weeks later than in recent years, after there had been no hot spells but frequent showers without thunderstorms. Peronospora was the challenge of the vintage. It required meticulous crop protection as well as foliar work to keep the foliage wall airy and healthy. Without such, as well as a late harvest, physiological ripeness would not have been achievable in 2021. The harvest began in the last week of September and lasted until the second week of November, when the nights had long since returned to a sensitive cool. Must weights were low, but the grapes were still ripe, even though acids were very high. Dönnhoff maintains a large team and was able to harvest at the right time in every site. Since there was virtually no botrytis in the middle Nahe, it was not possible to select any Beerenauslesen and Trockenbeerenauslesen here, just Eiswein. The musts were cool due to the cold nights and could be processed without haste. That the 2021s also managed without residual sugar to balance the high acidity (10 grams per liter) is something no one would have thought at the beginning of harvest, even at Dönnhoff. But since it was partly precipitated as tartar, the wines are riper and rounder on the palate than was thought in the fall. In order to buffer the acidity naturally (with potassium and calcium), the musts were left on the extract-rich grapes longer than usual. The tartaric acid thus found binding partners and could partially precipitate, if the wine was given enough time. The results of the vintage are outstanding, especially with Dönnhoff, especially with the Grosses Gewächs and the Auslese category. I caught the GG from the Dellchen at the perfect moment at the end of July, but the wine still tasted great to me four weeks later in Wiesbaden. Published: Aug 25, 2022
2021 is, after a long time, once again a classic vintage, something Cornelius Dönnhoff has not had in this century, but for his father Helmut, a harvest in late October and November was still common. The harvest at Dönnhoff was a good two or three weeks later than in recent years, after there had been no hot spells but frequent showers without thunderstorms. Peronospora was the challenge of the vintage. It required meticulous crop protection as well as foliar work to keep the foliage wall airy and healthy. Without such, as well as a late harvest, physiological ripeness would not have been achievable in 2021. The harvest began in the last week of September and lasted until the second week of November, when the nights had long since returned to a sensitive cool. Must weights were low, but the grapes were still ripe, even though acids were very high. Dönnhoff maintains a large team and was able to harvest at the right time in every site. Since there was virtually no botrytis in the middle Nahe, it was not possible to select any Beerenauslesen and Trockenbeerenauslesen here, just Eiswein. The musts were cool due to the cold nights and could be processed without haste. That the 2021s also managed without residual sugar to balance the high acidity (10 grams per liter) is something no one would have thought at the beginning of harvest, even at Dönnhoff. But since it was partly precipitated as tartar, the wines are riper and rounder on the palate than was thought in the fall. In order to buffer the acidity naturally (with potassium and calcium), the musts were left on the extract-rich grapes longer than usual. The tartaric acid thus found binding partners and could partially precipitate, if the wine was given enough time. The results of the vintage are outstanding, especially with Dönnhoff, especially with the Grosses Gewächs and the Auslese category. I caught the GG from the Dellchen at the perfect moment at the end of July, but the wine still tasted great to me four weeks later in Wiesbaden. Published: Aug 25, 2022
Overall Rating
0 out of 5 Based on 0 Review
