Niederhauser Hermannshohle Riesling Trocken, Schneider 2021

​The wine is excellent. And I am so glad to be tasting it in December as opposed to the March after the harvest, when everything was pretty relentless and savage and turbulent. Now it’s the juice bomb I always surmised it would be, eventually, but often I realized too late just how fine it was.

It’s smoky-juicy-gingery-tropical-exotic and wonderfully rich and balanced. The slightest phenolic kick at the end will be obliterated with food. The wine is very likely not bone-dry, which is all to the better. What do I mean? There’s a crucial difference between a wine with, say, 2 g/l of RS and the same wine with 7 or 8. The Trocken limit is 9 g/l, and below that level we have gradations of dryness – all the wines are definitely dry – but with 8 grams the wine is juicy dry with a richer texture (not to mention more nuance, fragrance and length) whereas with 2 grams it is often a gnarly mean beast.