Awfully Neiss

I have been aware of the wine estate of Neiss in the northern Pfalz since 2001 when I recommended it in my role as German wine consltant to Sotheby’s Wine Encyclopedia.  At that stage I had searched the country high and low since the 1980s for German Pinot Noir that I could actually drink!

What had attracted my attention was the fact that at about that time Neiss had won top honours in the country’s leading red wine competition Vinum with a Frühburgunder, the early-ripening mutation of Pinot Noir. With their...