April 30, 2019 | News | Vintages
We tasted many 2018 wines at the VDP.Weinbörse Mainz earlier this week. Here some thoughts on this highly acclaimed vintage.
The VDP.Weinbörse is organized by the VDP.Die Prädikatsweingüter, the grower association which regroups some 200 of the best wine Estates in Germany. This fair for professionals is held every year, at the end of April. It allows member Estates to showcase their first wines from the latest vintage, i.e. this year the 2018 vintage (for white wines).
Overall, ProWein in March always proves too early for any meaningful input on the latest vintage. Many wines are still in cask, others - recently bottled - are still bottle sick, etc. However, the April timing of the VDP.Weinbörse allows for a good general feel for the latest vintage, even if it is often still too early for a proper review of any individual wine.
Once again, the German PS machinery went into over-drive and reports of a vintage of the century were avidly echoed by the press.
As we already hinted at in our Sneak Preview at the 2018 Vintage article published in Mosel Fine Wines Issue No 44 (Jan 2019), 2018 is a vintage kissed by the sun but could well deliver some remarkable wines.
The DNA of the vintage is one of ripe yet clean flavors underpinned by a light structure. On the upside the wines are easy to understand and enjoy, even young. On the downside there is often a sense of softness.
As we mentioned in our early preview, there seems to be two vintages hiding inside 2018, even at one and the same Estate: a truly zesty and a truly ripe one.
Even though it is still early days, we feel that, more than any recent vintage, generalities are not going to be of much use this year. Recommendations are going to be wine per wine.
We are looking forward to diving into proper Estate visits and seeing what the 2018 vintage really has in store for us. As usual, we anticipate Part I of our detailed 2018 Vintage Report to be ready by the end of June.
In the meantime, we encourage you to plunge into our detailed reports on the 2017 vintage: 2017 still remains seriously underrated and many top wines are still available on the market.
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© 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.
