Wine Advocate (93)

The 2020 Kiedrich Riesling Trocken is very clear, pure, refined and flinty on the elegant and complex, beautifully silky and coolish, classic Rheingau Riesling nose that indicates finely weathered and spicy slate and quartzite soils with delicate fruit or even floral aromas. On the palate, this is a wide and juicy, very fine and elegant, perfectly balanced Riesling with fine, crystalline acidity structure and a long and intense, well concentrated but always salty-crystalline finish. This is a gorgeous Kiedricher Riesling with very delicate tannin grip on the finish. 12.5% stated alcohol. Screw-cap closure. Tasted from AP 5 21 in November 2021.

James Suckling (95)

The super-intense wild-herb, lemon-balm and Amalfi-lemon character is married to no less fundamental minerality, then all of this is packed into a sleek body. Crystalline finish that’s extremely long and fine for the village-wine category. From organically grown grapes. Vegan. Drink or hold. Screw cap.

James Suckling (96)

What beautiful wild-rose, rose-hip and lemon-balm aromas this off-dry riesling has! Stunning mineral intensity and brilliance on the sleek and very focused palate. Very long finish that’s simultaneously juicy and as sharp as a Japanese cook’s knife. Vegan. Drink or hold.

James Suckling (97)

The extremely complex wild-herb and berry aromas drag you inexorably into this massively structured riesling that’s barely off-dry. Great concentration and so finely nuanced on the palate. Stunning interplay of minerality and juicy, peachy fruit. Very long, super-silky finish that’s very pure. Vegan. Drink or hold.

Celebrated as an epitome of excellence, the Fillaboa Rias Baixas Albarino 2020 is a remarkable embodiment of Spanish viticulture originating from the prestigious Rias Baixas region in Galicia. This distinct single-varietal Albarino was meticulously curated by Fillaboa, a revered estate known for its commitment to maintaining indigenous varieties and implementing sustainable practices in their vineyards.

The wine was produced through careful vinification in stainless steel tanks to extract maximum esseence from the low-yielding, hand-harvested grapes all while maintaining utmost integrity of the Albarino character. The result is a strikingly splendid wine with expressive aromatic profiles of citrus, stone fruits, and subtle floral hints.

Upon tasting, the Fillaboa Rias Baixas Albarino 2020 reveals a harmonious balance of minerality and vibrancy, ending with a lingering finish. This wine's elegance and flavour complexity make it an impeccable pair to seafood and shellfish. An experience in a bottle that is truly unforgettable.

Pazo Senorans Rias Baixas Albarino Seleccion Anada 2012 is the latest released vintage of the wonderful white, and we can rest assured that it is a wine of immense personality. Awarded 98 points from the Peñin Guide, the leading wine magazine in Spain, this sings with fascinating notes of “white fruit, citrus fruit, fine lees, petrol”. It possesses a richly flavourful and elegant palate ending with a lengthy finish.

Wine Advocate (98)

The single-vineyard Sorte O Soro had not been produced since 2016, and the 2019 Sorte O Soro is the next vintage after that. This plot has always shown additional elegance, freshness and salinity since he started vinifying it in 2004, because of the altitude (710 meters above sea level) and the north exposure to the Bibei Valley, where the old clone is planted on fine granite sand and quartz soils. Like As Sortes, this Sorte also fermented and matured with lees in new 500-liter French oak barrels for eight months. It has 14% alcohol with a pH of 3.12 and higher acidity (at 7.5 grams) than the rest of the 2019s. It feels very harmonious, elegant and nuanced with some creaminess, with notes of wet pollen and yellow flowers. The palate reflects the soil, with vibrant granite and very fine sand and electric quartz (saline), and it's also round and powerful from the clone that is planted in the vineyard. This vineyard is in the process of being organically and biodynamically certified. 2,240 bottles were filled in September 2020. I tasted the 2019s and 2020s from Rafa Palacios in Valdeorras. For him, these are two very good years. 2019 had a mild and dry winter and a rainy and cold spring that delayed budding, followed by a mild summer with fewer hours of sunshine, which meant a delay in the ripening process. Harvest was more than one month later than usual, and the grapes achieved very slow ripening and full development of aromas and flavors while keeping the acidity. The harvest started in October and finished in November. It's a beautiful, homogeneous vintage with very good wines. 2020 saw a moderately cool and rainy winter and a dry and cold spring that resulted in 20% less bunches than in 2019. The summer was also quite dry but, fortunately, not too hot. Given the low yields, maturation was accelerated, and the harvest began at the beginning of September for Louro and from September 25th for As Sortes. Given the scarce water, the plants had to work harder deep down into the soil, which marked the wines; the silica and quartz from the sandy soils of O Bolo shaped a saline identity and the wines achieved a lot of elegance and balance. It's a more heterogeneous vintage, and the higher-altitude vineyards behaved better. The 2020 O Soro is out of this world. He gave me a quick preview of the very cold 2021, a vin de garde vintage but a challenging year with a lot of rain. They are in the process of certifying their vineyards (organic and biodynamic), but they have some problems in the vineyards with neighbors who are not organic, so it will probably be faster for O Soro and Sorte Antiga.

Decanter (98)

Sampled from a vat, this is one of the best As Sortes I have ever tasted, comparable to the iconic 2011. It's a prodigy of subtleness and elegance. Everything is firmly delicate in this wine. Restrained aromas open up parsimoniously, with a steely structure like a great Burgundy, but with flinty acidity almost like Grosses Gewächs from Rheingau. Despite the fact that the sample was not yet bottled, the wine had no oak influence, just the indication that it had been aged, as top Godello must. Rafael Palacios is refining his work year after year, reaching the magic of the greatest wines. A top wine, and one to keep.

James Suckling (97)

Deep, dense and subtle, this is an imposing wine, yet remains so vital and animating. Shimmering with a thousand facets, but also with a forthright, nectarine note that makes it instantly appealing. Brilliant finish that reminds us what it's like to be up in high mountains – the light, the air. Drink or hold.

Wine Advocate (96)

Vinified in stück and doppelstück (1,200- and 2,400-liter barrels, respectively) and aged on the full lees until the end of July, the 2020 Kiedrich Turmberg Riesling Trocken shows a fascinating, deep, intense and generous as well as complex and aristocratic bouquet of ripe yellow fruits and crushed dark stones. The Turmberg is darker-toned and deeper than the Klosterberg, maybe also even more complex and provided with substantial but elegant fruit. Full-bodied, refined and elegant on the palate, this is a lush, intense and expressive, seriously structured, very long, complex and tensioned Turmberg with a spectacularly long, multilayered and persistently salty finish. Seriously, the Turmberg has never been better than in 2020. For the first time since its re-activation in 2005, the Turmberg premier cru is on grand cru level. Its aftertaste is incredibly dense and compact but also salivating and provided with the energy and expression of a great wine. A Must Buy of the vintage and a Best Buy as well! Magnums preferred. Tasted at the domain in August 2021.

James Suckling (98)

Very lush and exotic. This lives from the almost erotic interplay of enormous ripeness, creamy richness and the fresh acidity that makes this massive wine so bright and enticing. This could live a century!

James Suckling (98)

Very lush and exotic. This lives from the almost erotic interplay of enormous ripeness, creamy richness and the fresh acidity that makes this massive wine so bright and enticing. This could live a century!

Wine Advocate (98)

Picked on January 7, the 2016 Rheingau Riesling Kiedrich Gräfenberg Eiswein is super precise and spicy on the concentrated and aromatic nose where pineapple and some ethereal, spicy aromas are displayed. The wine is rich, round and elegant on the palate, very sweet but also piquant and pure, with very fine tannins and a long, vibrant finish. This is a truly great Eiswein with mind-blowing precision and sensual intensity. Total production: 900 liters. Tasted in October 2017.

Wine Advocate (98)

Picked on January 7, the 2016 Rheingau Riesling Kiedrich Gräfenberg Eiswein is super precise and spicy on the concentrated and aromatic nose where pineapple and some ethereal, spicy aromas are displayed. The wine is rich, round and elegant on the palate, very sweet but also piquant and pure, with very fine tannins and a long, vibrant finish. This is a truly great Eiswein with mind-blowing precision and sensual intensity. Total production: 900 liters. Tasted in October 2017.

James Suckling (100)

A gently spicy thread here with all manner of fresh fruit that’s just so ripe. This offers very intense mangoes and apricots with peach essence and gentle candied kumquat. The palate is like a perfect sphere of flavor, completely seamless. This is melded together by an extraordinary vintage and delivered to the greatest heights of sweetness and balance. Really a perfect wine. Drink over decades.

James Suckling (100)

A gently spicy thread here with all manner of fresh fruit that’s just so ripe. This offers very intense mangoes and apricots with peach essence and gentle candied kumquat. The palate is like a perfect sphere of flavor, completely seamless. This is melded together by an extraordinary vintage and delivered to the greatest heights of sweetness and balance. Really a perfect wine. Drink over decades.

James Suckling (93)

A very classic dry Rheingau riesling with plenty of mineral depth, packed in a rather sleek body. Delicate white-fruit aromas with some yellow-peach and floral notes. Long and precise, dry finish, the freshness of which pulls you back for more. Drink or hold. Screw cap.

Jancis Robinson (17)

VDP Ortswein. Lithe and elegant aromas of wet stone, apple and lemon zest. The stony minerality shapes the outline of the wine, while the acid sets the pace and the fruit colours in the lines. Extremely long and concentrated. Delightful, stony, pithy and fun.

James Suckling (99)

Ripe and golden with a subtle hint of oak in the nose, plus some delicate spice. Super concentrated and super elegant with fabulous minerality at the powerful finish, this astonishing dry riesling is only just beginning to come into its own. The first vintage from this sub-site of the Gräfenberg that the Weil family always called by this Italian name. Drink of hold.

James Suckling (99)

This starts as discreetly as Ravel’s Bolero, the peachy aromas of the Rheingau now just beginning to emerge from behind their veil of yeast from the long maturation in barrel. Then this wine, like Bolero, steadily climbs to a very exciting and expressive conclusion. Then you experience the mineral side of this grape and region in great purity. Drinkable now, but best from 2023.

James Suckling (95)

The combination of cool, peachy aroma and flintiness makes the nose of this wine totally ravishing. Then, the brilliant minerality on the sleek and sharply focused palate adds another compelling argument for the greatness of this wine. Love the very long, crystalline finish. Drink or hold.

James Suckling (94)

What a wide spectrum of ripe-fruit aromas this serious and delightful dry Rheingau riesling has! They range from a diversity of citrus, through persimmon to fresh pineapple and apricot. Concentrated, very elegant and focused on the medium-bodied palate, with tons of wet-stone minerality at the long, very filigree finish. Drink or hold.

The ageing of Riesling in large, old oak casks for several years, was a style with a great tradition at Schloss Johannisberg hundreds of years ago. It was revived in 2017 and this now stands as the absolute pinnacle of Trocken wines produced. Made in tiny quantities and only in outstanding vintages, no scores or reviews yet available for the 2018 – what is sure is that these bottles will be long gone by the time the critics get to review them.

James Suckling (100)

Tasting this makes me feel like Goethe is just about to walk in the door! Self-confidently old-fashioned in the way that a 1920s Bentley car or an 1820s Breguet pocket watch is. Yes, you can analyze and note that there’s an oxidative side to it, but the combination of creaminess and silky bone-dryness is like nothing else I can think of. And below the waterline of direct perception is a gigantic structure that drives the mind-blowing finish! Matured for 30 months in neutral wooden casks. Drinkable now, but best from 2024.

James Suckling (100)

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James Suckling (99)

Very cool and reserved at the front, but this is an enormously deep and complex wine that has staggering mineral intensity. The lime and oolong-tea freshness effortlessly swallows up the unfermented grape sweetness, as if it didn’t really exist. Some will criticize, saying that this is too radical, but that’s what creates the great excitement! The herbal freshness at the finish is really astounding. Drinkable now, but best from 2023.

James Suckling (96)

The complex nose of sliced pear, white peach and white currant with delicate floral notes pulls you into this very juicy and vibrant Spatlese that leaps and bounds over your palate, in spite of the frank natural grape sweetness. Then comes the radical minerality at the very focused, long and pristine finish. Drink or hold.

James Suckling (99)

The nose of this Spatlese makes me think of 18th century engravings of pear and white peach varieties, but that only hints at the enveloping and astonishingly fine fruit that follows on the palate. A masterpiece of finesse, precision and balance, but even that doesn’t say the most important thing, which is the breathtaking leafy freshness and stony clarity at the stunningly long finish. When will it ever stop? From organically grown grapes. Drink or hold.