Lukas HammelmannRiesling “Wilhelm Friedrich” Trocken 2023 (750ml)

The Grand Cu dry Rieslings always see an extra year in barrel; thus they are normally released two years after the harvest. The wines nearly always go through complete malolactic transformation and are bottled unfiltered.

Yet still, they are wines of superb delineation, focus and power. The Schlossberg, Von den Terrassen and “Wilhelm Friedrich” all come from sites west of Zeiskam, in and around the famous Haart mountains, in the general region where most of the Pfalz’s more famous wines come from. Thus there is an amplitude, an exuberance that reads to me as more Pfalz than the other two wines (the Klosergarten and Roter Berg) which somehow read to me as cooler and leaner).

The “Wilhelm Friedrich” is a wine dedicated to Lukas’ grandfather; it comes from a site near Neustadt with mostly gneiss soils. How this affects the wine I have no idea. Nonetheless, this is always a monumental wine – technicolor and saturating and just stupidly impressive. Your mouth aches, in a good way, after a healthy gulp.