2009 Germany & Mosel Riesling Vintage

Across Germany, a cold winter was followed by an unusually warm April that gave the vegetative cycle a jump start, and bud break came early. June was cool and disturbed the flowering, which stretched over three to six weeks depending on the spot, against seven to 10 days in better years, and June and July were also wet, calling for attentive spraying against fungal disease. In the Mosel, the June flowering fell in a damp, relatively cool spell, coulure left fewer berries, and in many places the berries and bunches were very small. August brought heat and mostly dry weather across Germany, with drought a problem in isolated areas, and the unusually dry summer led some vines to shut down. Later in the summer the Mosel saw regional hail damage and losses to downy mildew (Peronospora). "August, September and October were months with very sunny, very dry, textbook weather, almost too dry," Johannes Selbach of the Mosel's Selbach-Oster estate told Wine Spectator. Rain at the beginning of October raised fears of a repeat of 2006, but cold weather and even frost set in soon after, most of the harvest was done in good weather, and late-harvesting estates brought in grapes until well into November. Harvest in the Mosel, Rheingau and Rheinhessen began in early to mid-October, with most fruit picked by the end of October. The Mosel crop came to 780,000 hectoliters, 13 percent below 2008, against 893,000 hectoliters in 2008 and about 970,000 in 2007. It was the smallest Mosel harvest in decades, and even 1976, until then counted among the smallest vintages by volume, gave more Mosel Riesling. Many growing families lost 30 to 40 percent of their crop, especially in Riesling and the Pinot varieties.

The year brought nearly perfect weather, leaving growers in all 13 German wine regions very satisfied with quality. Norbert Weber, president of the German Winegrowers' Association, predicted the vintage would go down in history as a very great one, adding that seldom had growers picked such aromatic, thoroughly healthy and fully ripe grapes (translated from the German). The national crop came to about 8.8 million hectoliters, 10 to 15 percent below the previous year and the five-year average, owing to uneven flowering and a sunny but dry late summer. Rheingau, Mittelrhein and Nahe expected shortfalls of more than 20 percent, Franken none and the Pfalz only 6 percent, while strong winter frosts left Sachsen and Saale-Unstrut with only about half of their 2008 crop. Rheingau ripening was two weeks ahead of schedule by mid-August, hail cut the crop at Schloss Schonborn by about 35 percent against long-term averages, and Reichsrat von Buhl began picking on 14 September in the Pfalz.

Mosel Riesling showed excellent ripeness and aromatics, with qualities largely in the Spatlese and Auslese range, but a very low average yield of 80 hectoliters per hectare. The Pinot varieties, now about 10 percent of the vineyard area on the Mosel, Saar and Ruwer, reached up to 100 degrees Oechsle at an average of 70 hectoliters per hectare. Germany-wide, many estates made Beerenauslese and Trockenbeerenauslese at must weights of well over 150 degrees Oechsle. The high ripeness meant few German wines below Spatlese level, except from less privileged sites, overcropped vineyards or declassification, and most estates made small quantities of Beerenauslese and Trockenbeerenauslese despite very little botrytis. In the Mosel, Johannes Selbach said the little rain in early October did no damage but was instrumental in getting botrytis going three weeks later. Many potential Spatlese and Auslese wines were sold as Qualitatswein for marketing reasons.

Mosel Fine Wines re-sampled over 100 fruity and noble-sweet wines from estates including Geltz-Zilliken, Fritz Haag, Schloss Lieser, Egon Muller / Le Gallais, Joh. Jos. Prum, Willi Schaefer and von Schubert. It found the 2009s much more open than the 2008, 2007, 2006 and 2005 at the same stage, named Spatlese and Auslese the sweet spot of the vintage, found hardly any real Kabinett, said the cooler Saar and Ruwer have the edge over the Mosel, and noted superb noble-sweet wines in tiny quantities. The warmth of the vintage shows in petrol notes in some wines. It summed up 2009 as a big and overtly fruity vintage, full of crowd-pleasing qualities, that complements the racy 2008. The healthy grapes made 2009 ideal for dry-style Riesling. Among dry and off-dry Rieslings, Mosel Fine Wines found a big and bold style with few true classics, most of them from slate-driven soil, and said the off-dry wines, a Mosel speciality, fared particularly well, above all Immich-Batterieberg's Enkircher Ellergrub and Enkircher Batterieberg. The 2009 vintage has been compared with 2007.