Riesling Lenchen Grosses Gewächs 2022

Wine Description for Riesling Lenchen Grosses Gewächs 2022 by Peter Jakob Kühn

Colour & Appearance

Intense, luminous straw yellow – a wine that already promises depth and substance in the glass.

Nose

A Riesling full of tension and contradictions – and all the more captivating for it. The Oestricher Lenchen oscillates restlessly between reductive and oxidative poles: here quartz stone and chitin, there soft kernel fruit and citrus peel. Woven through it all is a hint of floral perfume and dry hay. A Rheingau heart with a Jurassian, wild soul – unbound, wilful, magnificent.

Palate

On the palate, the wine unfolds with impressive intensity and purity. Despite modest 1.9 g/l residual sugar and a taut acidity of 7.5 g/l, a delicate, lemony sweetness shimmers through – mouth-watering, framed by lively salinity and accompanied by soft fruit. The structure is forceful, the minerality vibrant.

Finish

Long, precise and carried by an electrifying tension. The finish resonates – salty, stony, with a final hint of citrus peel. A wine that still needs years to fully come into its own.

Terroir & Origin

The Oestricher Lenchen on the Pfingstbach ranks among the great, yet lesser-known vineyard sites of the Rheingau. With 12–15 % westerly exposure at 120–170 m altitude, it offers an extraordinary microclimate. The soils of gravelly loess, interspersed with iron-rich quartzites and clay marls – the old field name “Eisenberg” hints at it – lend the wine its characteristic minerality and depth.

Grape Variety & Vinification

Pure Riesling from a single parcel, planted 1964. Hand-harvested whole bunches, gentle long-press extraction, spontaneous fermentation without intervention in the natural must composition. Maturation for 18 months on full lees in a traditional wooden cask (1,200 l). Alcohol: 11.5 % vol. – modest, precise, harmonious.

Special Features

The Lenchen is actually renowned for its noble sweet Rieslings – the early morning mist of the Pfingstbach promotes botrytis. That Peter Jakob Kühn has been vinifying a Grosses Gewächs here for the first time since 2018 is a bold, convincing decision. The 2022 proves it: this vineyard site can shine just as brilliantly in a dry style as it does in the sweet style.