Dr Deinhard (Von Winning) Pinot Noir

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Dark cherry and plum are mingled with sage, fennel, chalk and salt in a Von Winning 2009 Pinot Noir that has a delectable similarity in its interplay of fruit, herbal and mineral elements to the estate’s Rieslings. An aura of wood smoke along with brown spices and piquancy of fruit pit are nicely integrated into a sappy, satiny-textured matrix of impressive length. Provided the wood doesn’t in any way dry this out and it sails through its bottling untroubled, we’ll have another new star in the German Pinot firmament. (I rated the finished Von Winning 2008 Pinot Noir – on which I reported in detail from cask in issue 187, where you will also find more about the site, vine material and approach employed – 91 points, though I harbor some suspicion that it was still suffering slightly from recent bottling.) For an account of recent changes of ownership, winemaker, and style at this estate, I urge readers to consult my reports in issues 185 and 187. To repeat as regards issues of labeling, the top dry wines here are being bottled – sans Pradikat – under the “Von Winning” label that in fact corresponds to the new official name of this estate, while a second range that includes some residually sweet Rieslings continues to be labeled with the more familiar designation “Dr. Deinhard.” It’s possible also that some dry wines may be bottled in part with one label and partly with the other. The best I felt I could do to avoid confusion is to refer in the text of my tasting notes to the label under which I tasted each wine, but to treat “Dr. Deinhard - Von Winning” as the estate’s name for our purposes and ask readers to look-out for either designation on the label. And look-out you should, because passionate young arriviste Stephan Attmann and veteran (though still young) vineyard manager Joachim Jaillet are putting some head-turning quality into bottle. Incidentally, the vines personally farmed by Attmann’s mentor, long-time Muller-Catoir cellarmaster Hans-Gunter Schwarz, on the villa of multi-estate-owner Achim Niederberger will be incorporated after 2010 (in a manner to be determined) into the production of Deinhard and Von Winning. A very small volume of 2009 vintage wines will be bottled by Schwarz under the Villa Niederberger label, but I did not taste those. (For my report on the corresponding 2008s – which were never exported – see issue 187) The team here harvested Riesling until October 29, and the integration of one new 500 liter French barrel into each of the top dry bottlings – an expedient in lieu of large fuders – has met with a success that one can now compare with that scored by similar means at the newly-launched Immich-Batterieberg estate on the Mosel (for more on which, consult my issue 192 report on their outstanding 2009s). Attmann – a self-confessed wine geek whose range of experience astounds me – professes to admire in white Burgundy the “cool touch” of Meursault from Fichet, Jobard, or Roulot, and it’s not just on account of the use of French barrels that one finds fascinating parallels between his dry Rieslings from the great vineyards of the Mittelhaardt and some top wines of Meursault or even Chablis.Importer: Terry Theise Estate Selections, imported by Michael Skurnik Wines, Inc., Syosset, NY; tel. (516) 677-9300

There can be no more striking example of Attmann’s ambitions or of his ability to turn an amateur’s aesthetic ideals into vinous reality than the remarkable wine that is to be bottled under the Von Winning label as simply 2008 Pinot Noir. Fermented for 23 days in a conical wooden upright, followed by maturation in 9 assorted barriques, it had only just finished malo-lactic after nearly a year when I tasted it, and had never been sulfured. I debated about publishing what looks like such improbably good news given this wine’s youth and the notoriously capricious ways of Pinot, but I tasted enough barrels and trust Attmann – having gotten this far – not to screw up from here out. Rose hip, blood orange, sour cherry, maraschino, and brown spices in the nose put me in mind of Chambolle or Vosne – I could not help it. The contrast between textural creaminess and tart bright edge of red berry and citrus zest is striking, and the bittersweet finish hauntingly long, polished, and elegant. This is an amazing performance in the making, and you can be sure I shall publish a note on the finished wine, too. Attmann got lucky: the vines are pinot fin suitcase clones tightly-spaced in a sweet spot in the Reiterpfad that was spared the vintage’s hail. For general updates on the change of ownership and radical recent developments at this venerable estate, I refer readers to my report in issue 185. The official winery name is now Von Winning and the Dr. Deinhard label will be used only for selected wines, not including any of the ostensibly top dry bottlings. I have conjoined the names, and continued to use Dr. Deinhard as a shorthand, because that is still how this winery is routinely referred to (even inside Germany), and readers should simply be on the lookout for either of these names on a label as an indication that it came from the winery in question (and, what’s more, is worth tasting). Young wine-geek-as-director Stefan Attmann – another of the many protegees of Hans-Gunter Schwarz, whose friend Joachim Niederberger now owns the winery – is attacking his work here with frenetic passion, but you have only to taste the latest crop of wines to recognize what discipline and determination he and his vineyard manager Joachim Jaillet (with whom I toured their sites) also bring to their jobs. Aspects of vinification worth bearing in mind are skin contact; near-absence of sedimentation; largely spontaneous fermentation; absence of fining; and filtration only immediately before bottling. (Common practice with German Riesling is still to filter at least twice.) “No risk, no fun,” is among Attmann’s mottos, though as he pointed out, the low pHs and cool weather of 2008 improved one’s odds. The U.S. importer, incidentally, offered last year a much extended range of 2007s, so that with two exceptions the stateside prices for wines of the 2008 vintage have not been set, although many can be expected to arrive here in the course of 2010. Precisely which wines of Deinhard will in future be bottled as Grosses Gewachs remains up in the air. The winery is promoting several individual parcels – i.e. not official post 1971 Einzellagen – for this status.Terry Theise Estate Selections, imported by Michael Skurnik Wines, Inc., Syosset, NY; tel. (516) 677-9300