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A rich, ripe vintage but some wines lacked sufficient acidity to age well
Weather Conditions
Perfect setting in April, copy-book flowering in June and a sun-drenched, relatively dry summer encouraged the grapes to ripen in almost tropical temperatures and the best of all possible conditions. The “Indian Summer” from 10th to 29th October gave great concentration and botrytis set in to allow fabulous Ausleses up to Trockenbeerenausleses to be made.
Best Appellations
It was a very difficult year for making typical light fresh dry wines because of the spread of botrytis. Those who picked early made good Kabinetts, but many lesser wines lacked acidity and developed unpleasant side-flavours: these wines are now well past their prime. In contrast, the sweeter wines, when carefully produced, are delicious now and the very best wines will last for many years ahead, to represent the finest vintage for heavily botrytis affected wines since 1976.
Best Producers
In every region great wines and disappointing wines were made side by side and much depended upon the skills of each Weingut. Among those which stood out were Paul Anheuser in the Nahe, the Staatsweingut in Eberbach, Dr. Loosen in the Mosel and Burklin-Wolf in the Pfalz. A successful Eiswein vintage but many wines were rather spoiled by the heavy botrytis.
