September 7, 2018 | News | Issue Highlights
Weingut Später-Veit proves a great discovery. It produces stunning wines of great elegance, including one of the finest Kabinett from 2016.
After a most challenging start during the growing season, the 2016 vintage has turned out to be a charmer with much early ripe appeal. But the 2016 vintage also delivered racier wines including a few stunner cut along the great canons of the 1997 vintage, one of the finest vintages ever, as our recent 1997 retrospective has amply shown.
As we explain in the latest Mosel Fine Wines Issue (No 42), Weingut Später-Veit surprised us with a stunning collection crowned by a gorgeous 2016er Kabinett from the Piesporter Goldtröpfchen. This wine would have easily made it in our list of Kabinett highlights from that vintage!
Weingut Später-Veit is a name that not many will recognize, despite the fact that the history of the Später, Veit and Welter families goes back centuries in Piesport.
The Estate got its current form under the impulse of Heinz Welter (he married into the Später family), who took over the family Estate in 1988. He focused on terroir, identifying parcels adequate to each wine style and secured the prime holdings the Estate owns today in Piesport and Wintrich.
In 2008, his son Niklas joined him on the Estate. Sometimes, handover between generations can prove a bumpy road. Not so at Später-Veit. Heinz Welter was quite impressed by his son: “I essentially gave him a free hand to experiment right from the start ... despite the fact that he was only to finish winemaking school in 2014.”
He introduced some further changes which added another layer of elegance and finesse to the wines. He adapted the vine growing from one long bow to two small bows. This increases yields ever so slightly but also allows the terroir contours to come through more easily. He systematically introduced fermentations with ambient yeasts and long aging on the lees (some wines are now left on their fine lees for up to 24 months). Then, much as Hofgut Falkenstein (see the article here), the Welters started to work with fractioning while pressing the juice which adds cut and focus to the wines.
Lastly, the Estate has systematically delayed the commercialization of its wines. The top dry Riesling on sale at the moment is the one from 2015 and the Estate’s top Spätburgunder on sale at the moment is from 2010.
We were simply bowled over by the tasting of the current collection (a combination of the 2015, 2016 and 2017 vintages). The wines show incredible finesse and precision, much in the style found at Hofgut Falkenstein, Joh. Jos. Prüm or Weiser-Künstler. Simply put, this is one of the finest sources for elegant Riesling in the region.
Already before Niklas Welter made his imprint on the Estate, his father Heinz had developed a desire to bring terroir to the forefront. Out of this quest came, among others, a Kabinett made from the Armes (or Ames) sector, which the Estate has been producing for years now.
This prime sector was classified in the highest category on the old Prussian maps. It is situated just above the village of Ferres, in the vicinity of the famous Piesporter Schubertslay. As Heinz Welter explains, “it is not easy to make Kabinett wines in such warm vineyards as the Piesporter Goldtröpfchen. Our parcels in the Armes sector always have good water retention properties, which leads to slightly higher yields. Also, the vines are still planted on single stake here, which retards the ripening process. All that allows us to produce a Kabinett in most vintages.”
The 2016er Armes Kabinett was made along the classic lines used by the Estate. The grapes are harvested at approx. 85° Oechsle. The wines are fermented in stainless steel and left on their gross lees until bottling, i.e. March after the vintage. This 2016er Kabinett is a little jewel of refinement often found at the Joh. Jos. Prüm Estate ... including an initial element of stink. It oozes the finesse and elegance that is the hallmark of the recent vintages at this Estate.
This wine is still commercially available and we can only encourage any lover of refined and playful Mosel wines to try it out. More generally, we can only urge importers and wine lovers alike to have a close look at this truly remarkable Estate. It is not every day that we make such a stunning find!
Happy hunting!
The amazing recent releases by Weingut Später-Veit
were reviewed in the Mosel Fine Wines Issue No 42 (Aug 2018).
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2016er
Später-Veit
Piesporter Goldtröpfchen Kabinett Armes
11 17
93
The 2016er Piesporter Goldtröpfchen Kabinett Armes comes from a parcel on a very steep part of the hill just behind the Ferres part still largely planted with un-grafted vines and was fermented down to 43 g/l of residual sugar. This develops a nose which reminds one of the finest of Joh. Jos. Prüm “stink” and this completely dominates the scents of ripe pear, cassis, apple and fine spices which are hidden below. The comparison with Joh. Jos. Prüm continues on the palate, where the wine is as light as water yet packed with flavors. The finish is a little jewel of fruity precision and herbal playfulness. This is a stunning Kabinett made in a true light style in the making! 2026-2041
© Text by Mosel Fine Wines "The Independent Review of Mosel Riesling ... and beyond!"
Disclaimer: Mosel Fine Wines is an independent publication and has no commercial relationship with any Estate, association or organization featured in this article.
