Jamessuckling.com | JS 94
Published: Jul 04, 2024

A cool and distinguished riesling Kabinett with aromas of red apples, vineyard peaches and red forest berries. Sleek and very focused on the barely medium-bodied palate. I love the way the stony acidity really shines at the long and crystalline finish. From organically grown grapes. Drink or hold.

The Wine Advocate | RP 93
Published: Oct 31, 2024

The 2023 Schloss Johannisberg Rotlack Riesling Kabinett is clear and fruity on the upfront nose that indicates ripe, intense and elegant fruit intertwined with deep and flinty/spicy terroir notes. Medium to full-bodied, intense and savory on the palate, this is a lush and quite intense, complex, if not powerful, and seriously structured Kabinett with the generosity and tension of the vintage and also its savory acidity (8.6 grams per liter). 11% stated alcohol. Natural cork. Tasted in early July and again at the domaine at the end of August 2024.

Schloss Johannisberg has been a certified organic winery for two years. The changeover could not have been more challenging with the 2023 vintage. “The harvest was a struggle because there was a lot of pressure due to the warm and humid air,” reports Stefan Doktor, an athlete—he races through the world's ice channels on a luge—who naturally knows and appreciates challenges. “You had to work as quickly as possible and press until 3 a.m. because the yeasts were already active in the vineyard. Before the big harvest team arrived on September 18, we had already brought in 40% of our grapes—all in a healthy state and physiologically ripe, with high acidity—the week before with the pre-harvest team. A week later, we had 80%.” In total, the harvest took a little less than three weeks. By the end of September, everything had been harvested, including two spectacularly precise botrytis wines, a Beerenauslese and a Trockenbeerenauslese, both of which have crazy acidity levels and precise fruit aromas, as if Albrecht Dürer had drawn them. They are the highlights of the Schloss Johannisberg 2023 vintage and are made to last.

The average yield in 2023 was 56 hectoliters per hectare. In the end, Stefan Doktor himself was impressed by the quality of the musts and even more so by the wines with their superbly pronounced tartaric acidity. The highlight for next year has already been bottled. For the upcoming 250th anniversary of Spätlese, which was discovered here in 1775, 1,000 bottles have been made of the Riesling Schloss Johannisberg Ex-Bibliotheca Subterranea Cuvée 100 Spätlese, which blends numerous Spätlese vintages back to 1915. Drink Date: 2029 - 2055

Winemaker

Perfectly balanced! Here the sweetness, acidity and the varietal character of the Riesling go hand in hand.