2020 Germany & Mosel Riesling Vintage

2020 at Mosel, Saar and Ruwer was the third dry year in a row, with the water supply in the vineyards the deciding factor. After a dry, snowless winter, the second warmest in Germany since records began in 1881, February brought plenty of rain, but spring was dry again, above all in April and May. Late frosts in mid-May caused no notable damage in the region. The weather turned wet and cool during flowering in early June. At the end of June, thunderstorms brought heavy rain in places while many villages had none. July was again extremely dry, and a heatwave in early August, with temperatures over 35 degrees, caused sunburn damage to the grapes. In mid-August some areas, especially the Mittelmosel, had heavy rain, and thunderstorms around Traben-Trarbach and Zell brought hail and erosion damage, while many vineyards stayed very dry well into September. Reinhard Lowenstein of the Terrassenmosel reported that the drought left a thinner canopy that could not shield the grapes from the sun, and sunburned grapes meant considerable losses in his vineyards and much work at the sorting table. The grapes developed rapidly in the first three weeks of September, and with must weights rising and acidity falling, Riesling picking began in mid-September, in high temperatures. Rain set in from the last week of September, and cool, wet weather lasted into the second week of October, interrupting the harvest again and again. The dry season had kept pests and fungal disease down, and the cool temperatures kept the grapes healthy through the rain. Many estates paused on the rain days and, with partly sunny weather from 10 October, still brought in Riesling for high-quality dry and fruity-sweet wines. In all, the harvest ran about two months across three weather phases.

The 2020 Mosel crop was estimated at 810,000 hectoliters, about 30 percent more than the low-yielding 2019, when only 624,000 hectoliters came in. The region's annual average from 2010 to 2019 was 732,000 hectoliters, and Rolf Haxel, chairman of the Moselwein e.V., said the 2020 yield fell between 2018 and 2019, back in a normal range for the region. Riesling averaged 95 hl/ha, while Muller-Thurgau and Elbling averaged 110 hl/ha. Riesling must weights averaged 80 degrees Oechsle, with the bulk of the harvest between 70 and 90 degrees, and some Riesling musts went much higher, up to Auslese and Beerenauslese levels. Mosel growers once again spoke of a "neidischer Herbst" (an envious autumn): yields and quality varied widely from place to place because the rain fell so unevenly, ripeness could differ even within a single vineyard, and picking had to be selective. The first grapes picked, at the end of August and start of September, were early varieties such as Fruhburgunder and Solaris.

German growers harvested very ripe, healthy grapes, and the German Wine Institute (DWI) predicted very good quality wines. Late summer was sunny and dry, with temperatures often well over 25 degrees Celsius, which sped up the harvest as sugar levels rose quickly, and many wineries finished in three to four weeks. The nationwide forecast was around 8.6 million hectoliters, close to the ten-year average of 8.7 million and 3 percent above 2019. A very warm, sunny spring brought early budbreak and early flowering, and late frosts cut the crop in Franken and in Sachsen and Saale-Unstrut. In Saale-Unstrut, frost down to minus 6 C in the night into 12 May cost some growers up to 80 percent of their crop, and Sachsen picked on average 20 percent less than the year before. Franken's forecast yield was 38 percent below the ten-year average, due in part to late frosts. Stuart Pigott said the problem in 2020 was the worst drought in half a century. The drought lasted until rain arrived on 24 September, and temperatures topped 35 degrees Celsius in many places during a heat spike on 15 and 16 September.

The Moselwein e.V. board rated the vintage "gut bis sehr gut" (good to very good), and many growers expected 2020 to go down as a Kabinett vintage rather than an Auslese year, with very healthy grapes, very good aromatics and moderate fruit acidity. For the VDP, Dr. Carl von Schubert of Maximin Grunhaus reported that almost all Mosel members described classic Rieslings with fresh acidity and moderate alcohol, often naming 2016 as a comparison vintage. In Pigott's report, Oliver Haag of Fritz Haag said, "2020 was certainly the driest of the last three dry years," adding, "And it was that dryness that made the wines so sleek." Where noble rot developed in the fall, for example on the Mosel, the damp conditions usually kept the affected fruit from shriveling; the Egon Muller-Scharzhof estate on the Saar made stunning Kabinett and Spatlese but only one small lot of Auslese and no Beerenauslese or Trockenbeerenauslese. Across Germany, Pigott called the vintage slightly schizophrenic: most dry whites rated a point or two below 2019, a group of stunning wines made it look really great, and a small group failed to impress. Cornelius Donnhoff of the Nahe, who made two perfect 2020 Rieslings by Pigott's account, said, "As long as you threw away the grapes from drought-stressed vines, it was an excellent vintage." Pigott saw a case for comparing 2020 with 1999, though not a perfect match.