Altenberg Alte Reben Grosses Gewachs, Van Volxem 2019

Already quite open, this has a slew of white-fruit aromas and very successfully marries full ripeness with elegance. Long, driving finish with plenty of mineral power. 

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From the GG-plot, the 2019 Altenberg Riesling Auslese is very clear and fresh on the intense and concentrated nose that reveals tonic lime aromas. Round and intense on the palate, this is a very elegant, fresh, piquant and lemon-flavoured Auslese with a generous texture but great precision. This is rich and creamy but piquant and crystalline. It's a gorgeous 2019.

The 2019 vintage went "relatively briskly," says Dominik Völk, the hidden soul of the Saar estate van Volxem. The quantity, on the other hand, was modest in the rainy autumn or in the second half of September 2019. Nevertheless, the acidity levels remained good, insofar as one was not too late with the harvest. Botrytis was abundant, but most of it was discarded for lack of good quality, as in 2017: "The botrytis was too undifferentiated because the grapes were already oxidized inside," Dominik reports. Nevertheless, I found the GGs absolutely stunning in 2019, which includes the finest Volz I have ever tasted. 

A year earlier, in 2018, there was practically no botrytis at all, but the grapes dried on the vine, and in the end, there was a great interplay of concentration, sweetness and acidity up to the Auslese. Dominik even finds the sweet 2018s finer, more exciting and stimulating than the expansively full-bodied dry Rieslings of the vintage because of their clarity and tension. Roman Niedwoniczanki, the owner and face of the company, considers 2019 the best sweet wine vintage in the young history of the estate, and I can only agree. 

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