Von Winning Riesling Extra Brut Sekt
- Vinous
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White fruit flavors, crisp, crunchy fleshy fruit aromas, fully ripe. With air the wine gains complexity, leaning towards nectarine and crisp cox-orange apple with a nice dose of salinity in the long finish.
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Based largely on vintage 2016 and on grapes from Ruppertsberg (especially Linsenbusch), this offers a mouthwatering and remarkably Chablis-like evocation of salted, herbed chicken stock and oyster liquor. Walnut and peach kernel piquancy stimulate further on a brightly lemony, buoyant palate. The mousse is admirably fine, the long finish both cheek-pinching and saliva-inducing, irrepressibly juicy and loaded with animal as well as mineral savor. Coming as it does in large part from a relatively sandy and flat Einzellage with only a very modest reputation, I was amazed at both this wine’s strength of personality and its quality. Weingut Dr. Deinhard was strongly associated with sparkling wine from its mid-19th-century inception, and ever since the estate’s 2009 sale, the revival of the name von Winning, and Stephan Attmann’s installation as winemaker, traditional-method sparkling wine from cask-fermented musts has been a very serious part of the estate program. Results keep reaching new levels of finesse.
Since Von Winning Winery was founded in 1849, unique wines reflecting our vineyards in Ruppertsberg, Deidesheim, and Forst have been produced in our historic cellar. In 1907, Leopold von Winning, son-in-law of Dr. Andreas Deinhard, dedicated his life to creating top quality wines with respect to the outstanding vineyards in which he was allowed to work. He meticulously raised the quality of the wines to a new level and became founding member of VDP, an association of German premium wineries. His decision to work as gentle and close to nature as possible remains the overarching goal of today’s young and ambitious team led by Stephan Attmann. Thus, the visionary Leopold von Winning’s legacy of great wine lives on!
Intensive and sustainable work in the vineyard enables us to harvest grapes of optimal balance for vinification without interfering with the wines’ inner structure. The vineyard’s layout in our new high density plantings, for example, does not follow the machine’s design or “efficient” cultivation methods. Out of our own demand for quality and tradition, the original viticultural principles reemerged, allowing our vineyards to regain the face of earlier times!
We ferment our musts relatively turbid and without artificial cooling in different size oak barrels using their indigenous yeasts. Here the precious phenols polymerize to bestow a deep and complex aroma upon our wines. Subsequently, the wines are bottled with minimal handling and often without the aid of filtration. This approach is our way of expressing both world-class vineyards, such as the legendary Kirchenstuck of Forst, as well as the distinctive style of our winery. It is almost impossible to foster a wine more respectfully, from the flowering of the fruit to the finished bottle! In spite of everything, we have not established new winemaking practices. Rather we have resurrected traditions that were believed to be forgotten. Discover vivid, fine wines which are full of character, the way they were once upon a time!
A term typically reserved for Champagne and Sparkling Wines, non-vintage or simply “NV” on a label indicates a blend of finished wines from different vintages (years of harvest). To make non-vintage Champagne, typically the current year’s harvest (in other words, the current vintage) forms the base of the blend. Finished wines from previous years, called “vins de reserve” are blended in at approximately 10-50% of the total volume in order to achieve the flavor, complexity, body and acidity for the desired house style. A tiny proportion of Champagnes are made from a single vintage.
There are also some very large production still wines that may not claim one particular vintage. This would be at the discretion of the winemaker’s goals for character of the final wine.
This sunny and relatively dry region served for many years as a German tourist mecca and was associated with low cost, cheerful wines. But since the 1980s, it has gained a reputation as one of Germany’s more innovative regions, which has led to increased international demand.