Ahrweiler Spätburgunder 2019

The Pinot Noir comes from the Forstberg and Rosenthal sites in Ahrweiler. The sites show a mixture of sandstone, loam, greywacke and quartzite. The vines are about 25 years old. About two thirds of the grapes were destemmed. Cold maceration and spontaneous fermentation followed. The majority of the wine was matured in used wood and in small parts in medium-toasted barrels made of Spessart oak from the Assmann cooperage, which had been aged for five years. All grapes were harvested by hand. Chaptalisation has not been used since 2016, and a small portion of sulphur is the only thing added before bottling.

medium, quite transparent ruby red

In keeping with the stylistics of Julia Bertram and Benedikt Baltes, the Ahrweiler Pinot Noir clearly reductive, so that clear notes of gunpowder and smoke develop on the nose, which are best controlled by caraffing the wine when it is young. With plenty of air, more and more notes of blue blossoms and dark berries appear, also a note of roasted meat, which is always present in the wine. Ahrweilerbut not in the Dernau Pinot Noir gives. There is also a fine, slightly sweet yeast note and a cool note of crushed rock.

On the palate, the 2019 vintage develops Ahrweiler Pinot Noir already had a wonderful finesse in its youth. Smoke, gunpowder and roasted meat are still there, but they sort themselves out as if they knew exactly their places in the chamber orchestra that this wine forms, as it were. The Pinot is impressively fine. It shows itself juicy with berries, cherries and blood oranges, is firm in structure, fine in tannin and energetic in its mineral, punchy acidity. Julia Bertram and Benedikt Baltes have created an unadulterated, slightly tart local wine with a taut and firm structure, which completely dispenses with playful banter and too much wood and, despite a certain austerity, appears charming and approachable.