From €6.13, £9.79,and also available in Sweden and Norway
Find this wine
This is just the time of year when a razor-sharp dry Riesling absolutely does the trick – something refreshing and utterly food-friendly. Rheinhessen, once famous only as the home of Liebfraumilch, is now a powerhouse of young, ambitious producers of terroir-driven dry wines, notably but not exclusively Rieslings. Wittmann and Keller are ringleaders but their followers are increasingly accomplished and increasingly numerous. One of them, Stefan Winter, made a previous wine of the week. And here is a lovely fruity but razor-sharp dry Riesling made by another, about whom Klaus-Peter Keller writes:
‘Jochen Dreissigacker [pictured here – JR] is a former apprentice of ours whose winery is located in Bechtheim, which is 7 km away from Dalsheim. He has loess-loam soils in Bechtheim and since last year also a good parcel in the Morstein. He is very motivated and his wines are improving every year. For me he is nearly the same category as Stefan Winter (you already know him) whose style is a little more precise as he has more rocky soils. Jochen makes very good Pinot Blanc, Chardonnay and Riesling. He has been one of the best apprentices we ever had.’
The 2007 is the first vintage to be imported into the UK, by Liberty Wines, but I see that Dreissigacker has successfully sold his wines in to the monopolies that control wine sales in Sweden and Norway, and the (sensibly screwcapped) wines are of course easy to find in Germany.
In the UK his wines should be available at The Sampler, Noel Young Wines, Halifax Wine Compoany and WoodWinters Wines & Whiskies. Unfortunately, according to winesearcher.com anyway, they do not seem to be available in the US. But surely that will change.
Dreissigacker, Estate Riesling trocken 2007 Rheinhessen is a wine to enjoy with and without food over the next two years. German speakers will know that Dreissigacker means ’30 acres’. In fact the holdings have grown to 18 hectares and you can read about it (in German) on the very stylish www.dreissigacker-wein.de. Turning to the new Gault Millau WeinGuide Deutschland 2009 by Armin Diel and Joel Payne, I see that Jochen 30 acres has been dubbed Aufsteiger, or rising star, of the year.