2014 Weingut Robert Weil „Kiedricher Gräfenberg“ Großes Gewächs
Quelle surprise, what a magnificent GG. I really didn’t expect such a performance. It starts with the colour, no sign of age. Then a bewitching bouquet. On the palate we have clarity, purity and coolness „Kühle“. AND finesse. No fruit kitsch whatsoever and also a good integrated refreshing, powerful acidity. In addition white flowers/blossoms, grapefruit and a spicy&smoky minerality. It really shows drive&kick.
Go in the cellar and open a bottle or order it in a restaurant. And maybe eat a „Zürcher Geschnetzeltes“ with Rösti like me, good match.
BTW, shows no weakness on Day 3 and even on Day 4. BIG future.
The vintage 2014 is not such highly regarded in Germany.
The estate Weil makes good Rieslings, but rarely mind-blowing or intriguing for me. But this 2014er truely is.
It looks like the GGs from „Kiedricher Gräfenberg“ needs time, as in the youth you could easily overlook them. But this was always the problem with the GGs from the Rheingau region in general.
Thanks for this! I have a couple of this vintage in my cellar that I now know what to expect from!
The Weil Kiedrich Gräfenberg GG is notable - and I would say laudable - for maybe not being the most exciting GG, but being produced in a volume significant enough to actually be accessible on the market. To my knowledge it floats around 2000-2500 cases annually, which is easily an order of magnitude (or two!) over many, and I think makes it far and away the largest production GG out there. And again, I don’t think that is a bad thing; to make that much of a wine that is very good is really difficult - and has allowed far more people to taste what a GG is.
Meanwhile, 2014 is one of those vintages that the good producers did very well with, and I actually tend to prefer over the riper years that have followed and really jazzed critics. 2015 and the 2018-2020 run have produced solid wines, but they tend to be too rich and blown out from the heat for my taste (which is biased toward wanting cooler/nervier Rieslings for aging).
It is funny, but since we have been hiking the calm lumberjack trails above the Türmberg in Kiedrich almost every Sunday as our weekend exercise, more and more Weil wines have found themselves in my cellar through vinothek purchases before the hikes, but also through their vintage subscriptions which I did for many decades through sending in the order cards they sent to their mailing list with their vintage summaries. It used to be that the GG wines would remain in stock in their storage cellar for months on end, but in recent vintages they sell out very quickly, even if you can still pick them up in the Frankfurt airport duty free or at the department store wine departments. I am very certain that Wilhelm Weil is pushing the style of the GGs towards more and more elegance and coolness, “Kühle” often popping up in his language. This is coming at the cost of the tropical fruit elements that their terroir seemed to effortlessly give to their Rieslings in the past (2011 release being the highpoint of tropical fruit decadence at Weil IMO). The addition of the web store and the introduction of more marketing in their business model will probably make these wines more and more widespread in distribution and one day maybe they will be hard to buy. Already the sweet wines are sold out on release to the insider list, and I would not be surprised to see this happen to the GGs one day.
One of the greatest white wines I have ever tasted was the 1923 kiedricher graffenerg BA Eiswein. In fact t was ctually the most complex,with a distinct malt caramel finish, and still showing dried apricot and peaches.
