This Eiswein from A. J. Adam is incredibly rare now that Germany has experienced consistent warm vintages . If you want to experience Riesling in its purest and highest form this is it, as Eiswein grapes do not experience any botrytis and have the most pure varietal character.
A J ADAM: A MASTER SOMMELIER'S FAVORITE MOSEL PRODUCER
The Houston wine enthusiast scene and collector circuit is well-honed-in on the legendary producers that lie along the Mosel's side tributaries, the Saar and Ruwer. Icons like Peter Lauer, Egon Müller, Karthauserhof, and Maximin Grunhauser flow like water in and out of our cellar each year, but it's always perplexed me that A.J. Adam and his magical Dhroner Hofberg Rieslings, wines that I regard as some of the country's greatest, are hardly seen here. Andreas Adam is almost single-handedly responsible for bringing the Dhroner Hofberg back to its former status as one of the great Grand Crus of the Mosel. So here's the story.
The Mosel is Germany's most famous winegrowing region, but its most expensive wines are found along the cooler tributaries that merge with the serpentine river. Immediately south of Piesport in a small side valley lies the steep, south-facing vineyards of the tiny offshoot Dhron river valley. In the 1950s and ‘60s, the wines of Dhron Hofberg were regarded as excellent, and could be found on the tables of fine restaurants across the world. However, the new generation started to abandon the vineyards and their childhood homes for the cities. The result is a horde of extraordinary sites throughout abandoned corners of the Mosel's long winding route that haven't been tended properly for decades. Around the turn of the century, Adam returned to his family's estate and began a lifelong journey to recover it. He had attended the Geisenheim University and interned at several of Germany's finest winemaking estates, including Heymann-Löwenstein in the Winningen, another upstart estate that has recovered the steepest vineyards in the Mosel around the village of Winningen.
As Andreas describes it, expanding with vineyard land in the Hofberg was “almost free” he says, paying less than 5 euros per square meter. “The sites were steep and very hard to work, so the land was very inexpensive. There was no demand because everyone had abandoned vineyards and Dhron didn’t have a famous name like Würtzgarten.”
Harvest is always done by hand because the vineyards are impossibly steep. There are many dramatic picks, including a recent story I heard about Andreas harvesting an eiswein under a blood moon on January 20 of this year! Fermentations use only native yeasts and pass in old fuder (around 1000 liters), halbfuder (around 500 liters) and stainless steel. The style at this estate is deeply concentrated with lifted aromatics defined by finely slatey bouquets. The lush fruit is structured by pellucid and zippy acidity. They age extraordinarily well. - BRANDON KERNE, MASTER SOMMELIER
