Riesling GG Monopol 2024

Bone-dry, cool and unvarnished. The Riesling GG Monopol 2024 builds on smoky minerality, taut acidity and a saline pull on the finish. A Grand Cru that displays its origin rather than smoothing it over.

The monopole vineyard Wachenheimer Odinstal sits 350 metres above the Rhine valley, a hollow enclosed by ten hectares of mixed forest with no neighbouring vineyards, and therefore no spray drift. Across five hectares, four rock types lie closely together, a legacy of the Rhine rift's faults: basalt from the nearby Pechsteinkopf, shell limestone, Keuper marl and yellow variegated sandstone. At this altitude, the vines ripen around 20 days later than in the valley, which gives the wines freshness and tension.

Riesling is the estate's main grape variety. Estate manager Andreas Schumann, born in 1978, joined Odinstal in 2004 and farms strictly biodynamically; since 2013 the VDP estate has been Demeter-certified. In the cellar, the principle is non-intervention: spontaneous fermentation without temperature control, long lees ageing, minimal use of sulphur. The wines become as dry as they choose to be, usually bone-dry. Schumann's credo: identical cellar technique, different soils, and you taste the geology.

Lemon and white peach over smoky spice, with a floral hint. The wine remains dense and linear, the acidity precise, the finish saline. 12.5% vol.

Odinstal is a closed organism run to Demeter principles: five suckler cows graze among the vines, and bees kept by beekeeper Andreas Kramer pollinate the meadows. The Demeter logo appears on the label, and the notation "350 N.N." on the estate's labels refers to the altitude of the monopole vineyard.