2015 Dr. Loosen Graacher Himmelreich Riesling by Ernst Loosen & Telmo Rodriguez

This 2015 Graacher Himmelreich Riesling (Ernst Loosen & Telmo Rodriguez) is the result of the friendship between Erni Loosen and Telmo Rodríguez. Their curiosity and respect for each other's wine cultures made possible this wine, in which the "memory" of Spain meets the traditions of Germany. The two friends have revived old customs that were used 100 years ago in the Moselle and used to be called 'naturrein'. Telmo forced Erni to move on: the wine was fermented on the skins (orange wine) and aged in barrels that had been used to produce one of Telmo's finest Rioja wines (red!).

Himmelreich's vines are very old and not grafted on steep, south-west facing slopes rich in blue slate, where the grapes matured thoroughly in the hot and dry harvest of 2015. It fermented with the skins for four weeks and macerated for a few months. with the skins until it was transferred to used oak barrels where it matured for two years without any batonnage. It was bottled unfiltered and kept in the bottle for two more years. It has 12% alcohol and has 7.2 grams of acidity and three grams of residual sugar, so it comes through as quite dry.

It has a golden color and is initially closed and takes a while to come loose but then nice aromas of pollen, beeswax and a hint of honey are released with notes of yellow fruit. The wine is very expressive and structured, probably due to the contact with the skin (i.e. a semi-orange wine) with more volume and texture than what the alcohol content would suggest. At the beginning of 2018, 2610 bottles were filled and these were only released after several years of cellar maturation. The Netherlands only received a small batch in spring 2021 and of course these kinds of special beauties are available at Grandcruwijnen.nl