Martin, What is the significance of the marking next to “Rausch” on the label? I haven’t seen this before…
I think it’s “Erste Lage,” no? It’s an attempt to delineate the best sites–i.e., grand cru–and make it obvious on the labels.
http://www.vdp.de/en/classification/how-to-communicate-classification/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Thanks, Ryan. So, it’s a VDP designation for VDP members…
YES, it is the logo of “Erste Lage”. More info here:
http://www.vdp.de/en/classification/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Hi Foks,
Davis’ comments about “traditional” styled Kabinett at lower must weights becoming a thing of the past will probably be quite accurate for VDP estates by 2014, as the organization has come up with some fundamental changes to the regulations for minimum must weights for particular Pradikat levels of estates that wish to use the Erste Lage (Grand Cru) notation on their labels. I have outlined what those very significant changes are below (excised from an article that I wrote on the 2009 vintage). Weingut Geltz-Zilliken is the only estate to date in the VDP that I am aware of who embraced the new regulations starting with the 2009 vintage, rather than waiting until it would be officially required with the 2014 vintage. This is why the label in Martin’s picture of the bottle only states “Rausch” Kabinett on the label, with no mention of Saarburger prior to the vineyard name. As you will note in the changes listed below, minimum must weights for Erste Lage Kabinett among VDP estates will now be at Spatlese levels, which is understandable, as yields are now limited to a maximum of 50 hectoliters per hectare in vineyards to be designated as grand crus. Maximum yields at this level are much nearer to what Egon Muller has been practicing for years, but probably less than half of what Manfred Prum traditionally aims for in his vineyards. So the end result will be VDP Erste Lage bottlings that will be deeper and more concentrated at the Kabinett level than what was customary twenty or thirty years ago- of this there can be no doubt.
But to speak to Martin’s point about the 2009 Rausch Kabinett- depsite its higher must weight and fairly hefty residual sugar numbers at 70 g./l., the wine to my palate is very much in the “spirit” of a traditional Kabinett in terms of lightness of step, filigree and overall perception of sweetness on the palate. One has to remember that this is Saar Riesling in a very, very fine, tensile year, and the combination of minerality and acidity in the Saar requires a significantly higher level of residual sugar to balance the wine at what the palate experiences as “traditional” levels of sweetness for each Pradikat level. In general terms (and of course this is wildly dependent on vintage characteristics), I would think that most Saar Riesings at each Pradikat level will carry a minimum of at least 20% more residual sugar than a comparable wine from the Middle Mosel to balance off the much stronger perception of minerality and acidity inherent in the Saar. What one finds in the 2009 Rausch Kabinett is greater weight and intensity of flavor (due primarily to the adoption of the lower yields as proscribed in the new VDP regulations, rather than in the higher must weight IMO), without ever losing the wine’s Kabinett identity. Again, think of a Hanno Zilliken Kabinett that is now leaning more towards the stylistic profile of an Egon Muller Kabinett (not necessarily a bad thing to my way of thinking), rather than the slightly more delicate style of Kabinett Hanno might have made in a vintage such as 1985 for instance.
For those who will still long for a more “delicately” styled Kabinett from a VDP estate, the solution is simply to look below the level of Erste Lage bottlings. At the next level down in the new hierarchy, the “Ortsweine” level, one will be able to find from the Zillikens (for example) a 2009 Saarburger Kabinett, which is cropped at a slightly higher level (65 hectoliters per hectare) and which will be a slightly less intense bottle of Kabinett than the Erste Lage Kabinett from the Rausch. Given the fact that the vast, vast majority of the Zillikens’ vineyard holdings are in the Rausch, this is probably effectively yet another Rausch Kabinett in 2009, but with the new VDP regulations, it is labeled simply as Saarburger Kabinett. BTW, it too is a superb Kabinett in '09. All it will take is a bit of familiarity on the part of German wine lovers to master the stylistic bent of various levels of wines in the new categories, but it seems to me that the overall trend from the adoption of these rules will likely be higher quality across the board. Certainly I could find no argument with the changes brought about at Weingut Geltz-Zilliken with their adoption of these rules in the 2009 vintage, which may well be one of the greatest set of wines that the estate has ever produced (Hanno ranks it up there with his 1983s as the greatest wines he has ever produced). And given the fact that the bidders at the auction this year in Trier paid dramatically higher prices for the Zilliken 2009ers than they have ever paid for thier wines in the past, it seems to me that the changes here in terms of adopting the new VDP strictures ahead of time was perceived by auction attendees as an increase to an even greater level of quality.
The changes in the VDP regulations for member estates that will be required for all VDP members beginning in 2014 is outlined below.
All the Best,
John
Now for a bit about the changes in the regulations of VDP estates across Germany, which were adopted early in 2009 and which are scheduled to take effect no later than the 2014 vintage at member domaines. It is a far-reaching and important change in both labeling practices and in viticultural regulations that, in my opinion, will dramatically affect German wine far into the future. On the labeling front, one will now see more and more wines labeled by VDP member estates simply with the vineyard name from the very best sites in Germany, rather than with the name of the town and the vineyard, as had been previously practiced for decades. These best vineyard sites, which are classified as “Erste Lage” and designated with the following symbol on labels immediately after the name of the vineyard: . The wines that bear the Erste Lage designation can be either dry or noble sweet in style, with the dry wines all bearing the “Grosses Gewächs” designation or “GG” on the label, and the classic, off-dry wines from these sites simply listing the traditional Prädikat level after the name of the vineyard. The only real difference for these wines is the absence from now on of the name of the village on the labels for the Erste Lage bottlings. The vineyard sites themselves are not really too surprising, as these have long been considered the best sites in Germany and will be familiar to German wine lovers the world over- Himmelreich and Domprobst in Graach for instance are the Erste Lage vineyards in this village. But what is rather revolutionary is that now yields will be regulated in these vineyards for all VDP member estates who wish to use this new classification system, and they will be limited to fifty hectoliters per hectare- which is dramatically lower than what some of the most famous estates currently practice in their famous vineyards. How this will shake out in the end will be very interesting to witness, as some of Germany’s most famous vignerons have argued for years that higher yields are desirable to make great classic German Riesling, and their now current practices will be proscribed by the new VDP regulations. For these high yield advocates, they have until 2014 to decide on how to adapt their practices in the vineyards to the new, stricter yield regulations.
Below the level of the Erste Lage wines, or Grand Crus, will be wines that are categorized as “Ortsweine”, which will essentially be the quality equivalent of village wines in Burgundy. In fact, the new VDP regulations are very Burgundian-centric in orientation, as the VDP has clearly embraced the concept of terroir with the new regulations and will be promoting terroir at every opportunity. This seems like a highly logical direction for the organization to take and I suspect that it will lead to an even greater visibility for top German wines in the international marketplace. The Ortsweine category will list the wines by the village name, such as Saarburger Kabinett from Weingut Geltz-Zilliken, with no mention of the name of the vineyard to appear on the label, and in fact, these wines can be blended from several of the best vineyards in the village. The maximum yields allowed for wines to be sold in the Ortsweine level is only sixty-five hectoliters per hectare, which is still dramatically below what many estates are practicing for their very best wines. The Ortsweine level can be either dry or off-dry, and terms like Trocken, Feinherb and Kabinett will appear at this level, depending on how the wine is finished off by the winemaker in terms of residual sweetness.
At the level below this is the final category, called “Gutsweine”, which is roughly equivalent to the Bourgogne appellation in Burgundy and which will just have the name of the estate producing the wine on the label, along with perhaps Riesling Trocken or a proprietary name, such as Weingut Rheinhold Haart’s “Haart to Heart” bottling. All of these changes should make reading German wine labels to wine lovers relatively new to the wines of the country much easier to decipher, and the limits on maximum yields is going to make a quality revolution in the realm of German wine. Egon Müller has long argued that excessive yields was one of the German wine world’s biggest Achilles’ heels, and clearly we will soon find out if his observations are accurate, as yields are going to be coming down dramatically at some estates in the not too distant future. To date, the only estate that I know has adopted this new classification for their 2009ers is Weingut Geltz-Zilliken, as Hanno Zilliken and his daughter Dorothy Zilliken both observed “that what better vintage could we have than 2009 to start to adopt our viticultural practices to the new regulations- so why wait until 2014?” I should note that one of the other important tenets of the new VDP regulations is that minimum must weights for the Erste Lage category will be Spätlese- even for wines that are to be designated as Kabinett- which may make it more difficult to find those delicate, filigreed Kabinetts of yesteryear. When I mentioned this to a German friend, he quickly pointed out that “climate change has effectively already done away with most Kabinetts at old Kabinett levels of must weight anyway and the new regulations are simply formalizing what Mother Nature has already decreed.”
Thanks for the great info John. Much appreciated.
Thank you for the detailed explanation John. As an unabashed fan of old style kabinett I do wonder why the VDP hasn’t just eliminated the category. I would expect it has much to do with the sheer marketability of kabinett as a genre. Given that I still remain unconvinced as to the VDPs motive, since they appear to be insittutionalizing a fallacy. It would be much more “noble” to admit that kabinett is gone (until the next ice age).
One question - are monopoles ineligible for Erste Lage classification? I ask since you did not mention the Josephshofer as an EL vineyard in Graach.
Hi Davis,
I imagine that the vast majority of estates in Germany would have no interest in abandoning the category of Kabinett, as it is a very important level of wine for most of them. One has to remember that German wine has a very difficult time selling in Germany itself, as a majority German wine drinkers perceived until very recently that traditional German wine was too sweet and they would usually prefer to drink Italian or French white wines over their German counterparts. This has of course mitigated in the last few years with the fine success of the Grosses Gewachs bottlings and the march to higher quality on the part of a wide spectrum of German estates in their dry Riesling programs. But within the home market, Kabinett is much more important category than either Spatlese or Auslese, and so estates “need” to have a goodly supply of Kabinett- even in years when Mother Nature has really made it virtually impossible to make a true Kabinett (like 2006 in the middle Mosel). But I would not equate a 2006 Kabinett from someone like Schloss Lieser with the 2009 Rausch Kabinett from Zilliken, as the former is a fairly ripe Auslese that had to masquerade as a Kabinett because the estate had no “true” kabinett to offer clients who would only buy “Kabinett”, while the latter is a low yield, intense and beautiful Kabinett that probably represents the new paradigm of this Pradikat level.
I can understand your sense of loss that Kabinetten will now (by decree) have to carry heavier must weights for the Erste Lage level, and the possiblity certainly exists that at the Erste Lage level, one will lose the more delicate and filligreed style of Kabinett that was exemplified by the best Kabinetten of the 1970s and 1980s. But keep in mind that the style of Kabinett that you and I both love so much was really only one historical phase for the style of this Pradikat level, and ten or twenty years before, almost all Kabinetten would have been finished off with much higher residual sugar levels than was the case in the 1970s and 1980s. The style of the vintages of the 1940s or 1950s was across the board sweeter at each pradikat level (usually brought about by using more sussreserve in the final blend, rather than higher must weights), as this was the style of German wines for the previous generation. So the style that we love so much was really the result of a generational shift in the stylistic parameters of Kabinett somewhere between the 1960s and 1970s, rather than a classically traditional style that is now on the way to being abandoned.
And as I mentioned in my last post and Martin also spoke of- the Zilliken Rausch 2009 Kabinett is a wine that really still captures the sense of Kabinett that many of us have come to love- despite its higher must weight- and I think that you will really like it once you have had a chance to taste it. It does not come across as sweeter than its stated Pradikat level, and within the fullness of time, it should really prove to be a great, great bottle of Kabinett. It has all of the interplay between fruit, minerality and acidity that one has traditionally expected from Kabinetten- with all of the elements pulled taughtly together into a quite ethereal whole and it should age absolutely brilliantly. The filigree is still here that makes Kabinett such an alluring category of German wine (particularly with bottle age), and it is only within the realm of “intensity of flavor” that the wine has changed- for the better- at least to my palate.
As to your question about Monopole vineyards being capable of being ranked as Erste Lage, I have not seen the list of all the grand cru vineyards, but I assume that there is no prerequisite that a vineyard have more than one owner. I only mentioned the Domprobst and Himmelriech as examples of Erste Lage-rated vineyards in Graach, and they were not meant to be an exhaustive list of the grand crus in Graach- for I have not seen a complete list of which vineyards are ranked as such. Sorry not to have made this more clear in the text.
All the Best,
John
Wow, John. Great info! I just signed up for your newsletter! Thanks!
Again, thank you for the information John.
I will buy a couple of bottles of the Zilliken if I see it.
As for the pradikat of kabinett, and its historical context, I think you have inappropriately mingled the historial (pre-1971 wine law) cabinet labeled wines, which were meant for keeping, and the bastardized use of the term (due to the 1971 wine law) that resulted in what is now labeled kabinett. Cabinet wines were not miniatures, but more vin de garde (to use the French term), while kabinett was (not so much now of course) something entirely different, even if some of us (you seem to be one as well) cellared some of the wines for their potential.
I will mourn the loss of these little, lithe wines, as despite all commentary to the contrary I feel they are already mostly gone and with the VDP rulings they will be unlikely to ever return.