2020 Van Volxem Schonfels Riesling Grosses Gewachs
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Niewodniczanski now has a piece of the dramatically steep Schonfels, familiar to Riesling lovers from the early-21st-century restoration of portions by Lauer and Helmut Plunien. (The Schonfels surface is split between the communes of Saarburg and Ayl and lies within the Einzellage Fuchs.) The 2020 Riesling Saarburger Schonfels Grosses Gewächs presents a nose that strikingly suggests charred red meat, along with crushed stone, crushed pepper and cress. Suggestions of fruit – a familiar meld of white peach and lime – come off as almost an afterthought. The underlying feel is silken, but impingements of stone, pepper and cress keep the tongue tingling, and those persist into a finish that practically explodes with brightly juicy citricity while displaying transparency to saline savor, char, herbal resins and stone. What a confirmation of this site’s stature, not to mention of the successful collaboration of Niewodniczanski with his long-time (now departed) cellarmaster Dominik Völk!
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Neal Martin (Vinous)
William Kelley (Robert Parker)
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Dressed, like all the 2020s from VV, in a radiant lemon color that already represents the precision and vitality of the 2020s from this domain, the 2020 Schonfels GG offers a deep, intense yet precise and elegant nose of perfectly ripe and selected Riesling berries intermixed with finely slatey tones that build up for a complex and sensual unity that is more open than all the other crus here. Very delicate and frisky on the palate, this is a lush and round, salty-piquant, very intense and long Schonfels that reveals well-dosed power and a certain sweetness that is more hedonistic than the purity of the Wiltinger and Kanzemer Rieslings. Tasted in Wiesbaden in August 2021.
Although they don’t aim for exuberance of fruit chez van Volxem, the Schonfels manages to enchant with gentle aromas of citrus fruit and peach on the nose. On the palate there is more ripe yellow fruit with just a splash of orange, well-integrated into a rich texture. Acidity may be there but is not seeking sensory attention, leaving more room for a stone-dusty minerality to emerge. Burgundy does not seem far away. (MS)