In many people’s view, the Nahe forms a golden triangle of quality with the Rhine and the Mosel and its Rieslings can age effortlessly for 30 years or more. Considered to be plump, rich and firm, often spicy from seams of iron-rich red slate. Some people say earthy. Classic, fine, age-worthy wines from historic sites.
Schlossgut Diel (Burg Layen)
Larger-than-life Armin Diel is well-known around Germany – imposing, opinionated and often controversial. He was co-editor of the most influential annual German Wine Guide, the Gault-Millau. He is a frequent contributor to German wine and food magazines and has done much to raise the standard and profile of German wines on the international stage. Not everybody’s cup of tea, but we like him. He also makes some delicious wines with the help of his daughter Caroline and his Kellermeister, Christophe Kern, who comes from a winemaking family in Wehlen on the Mosel.
The Diel family founded their estate in Burg Layen south of Bingen in 1802. They now have 16 hectares on one south-facing slope which embraces Pittermanchen, Goldloch and Burgberg. Although Riesling forms the heart of his collection, Armin believes great wines can also be made in the Nahe with Pinot Blanc, Pinot Gris and Pinot Noir.
von Racknitz (Odernheim)
Top Mosel growers Clemens and Rita Busch had asked two times running “have you tasted at von Racknitz recently?” No, not recently. “You have to go there, the wines are getting really good!” So we looped through the Nahe to check them out. Formerly belonging to a historic cloister, the estate has a long history traceable back to Hildegard of Bingen back in the 1100s. There have been ups and downs though the centuries to the point where the winery was on the brink of collapse in 2002. Enter Matthias Adams, former CFO of Tech company Infineon Germany. Then in his late 30s he decided he wanted a career change, jacked-in his high-powered job and spent a year walking around the Black Forest. A friend at a large consultancy firm phoned him up and said, “there’s a job come in, it’s too small for us. Can you take a look at this winery, see if there’s anything you can salvage?” What no-one could have foreseen was that Matthias and Luise von Racknitz would fall in love and that together they have turned the estate’s fortunes around.
Luise takes care of the cellar and their two small boys, Matthias looks after the books and their vines. In addition to the lions’ share of Kloster Disibodenberg (which used to belong to the cloister), they have parcels in the great historic Nahe vineyards of Niederhauser Klamm and Hermannshohle, and the less well-known Schlossbockelheimer Konigfels, where local old-timers say the snow always melts first. Luise didn’t quite understand why Matthias had to buy the parcel in Traiser Rotenfels over 20kms away. It’s the one piece of Rotenfels at the bottom of the red cliffs, right next to the Traiser Bastei and gives a completely different minerality to their other wines. Opulent, dizzy, almost tropical.
Schafer-Frohlich (Bockenau)
Tim Schafer-Frohlich’s parents are slightly bemused by the steady flow of foreign merchants and journalists through their door in this rural corner of the Nahe. Still firmly in his twenties, Tim is playing at the top of his game. Confident with his use of wild yeasts, which many growers find difficult and unpredictable, Tim makes real “terroir” wines – wines with a clear sense of where they are from. With parcels in steep slopes overhanging the village of Bockenau, heavy with volcanic Porphyr stone and the more spicy iron-rich slate vineyards of Schlossbockelheim down by the river, the wines are tingly, nervy, limey and exhilarating.
Jakob Schneider (Niederhausern)
Spicy, dry Rieslings by Jakob Junior. Strictly speaking, his name is Jakob Schneider, not to be confused with his Lederhosen-wearing dad, Jakob Schneider. Junior has just finished at Germany’s top wine college Geisenheim and has come back buzzing with energy and ideas about how he wants the wine to taste. As long as he still makes some sweet wine for his Grandmother, his parents are quite happy to let him loose in the cellar and on the small parcels of vines around the village of Niederhausen. He’s whizzing around on his tractor, meeting us, running around the cellar, doing his thing – dry, exotic Riesling, fizzing with savoury minerals drawn from the deep red, iron-rich slate.
