Nahe Nobility: Emrich-Schönleber
10/22/22 -
From the Nahe, it' the 2021 GGs from Emrich-Schönleber: Frühlingsplätzchen and Halenberg. To make up for the glaring paucity (just a case of each), I am including his Riesling Mineral. A blend of younger vines from both of the Grand Cru sites, this represents maybe the greatest value at the estate - 80% of the Grand Cru wine for 50% the price. It is a shrewd investment that drinks well over its price point.
For those who aren't familiar with the wines of the Nahe, the holy trilogy is considered to be the wines of Dönnhoff, Emrich-Schönleber and Schäfer-Fröhlich. As per the distributor, Emrich-Schönleber lies stylistically in the middle: "They are neither as baroque and lavish as Dönnhoff, nor as fiercely angular as Schäfer-Fröhlich. There is a balance that is about as perfect and meditative as Riesling ever gets: texture and glycerin matched to a chiseled, yet glossy and ultra-fine architecture." As far as understanding the upper Nahe itself where Emrich-Schönleber is located, " it's a very cold region and if there is a parallel, it is not the cool limestone-riddled Rheinhessen, where Keller is, but the Saar with its slate. Even just 20 years ago, many wrote off the extremes of the upper Nahe as only good for Sekt, so cold was the climate. The upper part of the Nahe is a world of slate, both blue-gray and red.
The Halenberg is largely the former, with blue-gray slate that shapes a wine of rigor, density and power. This is perhaps the more mineral, more ageworthy of the two Grand Crus. The Frühlingsplätzchen has veins of red slate and always seems more expansive, diffuse, lighter and finessed. It is a wine with a stunning florality and vivid aromatics and more expressive in its youth.
The 2021ers are a pinnacle expression of a cool-climate vintage; these are chiseled dry wines the likes of which are not likely to come around all that often as we proceed further into a warmer world. As with the 2004s and the 2008s, which the 2021ers at Emrich-Schönleber most closely resemble, these will be epic wines... though they will require time." So grab a couple to lay away and if opening during the upcoming holidays, decant several hours prior! Giselle Hamburg
