Spätburgunder GG Himmelreich Herxheim 2024

The Spätburgunder GG Himmelreich Herxheim 2024 is Odinstal's first red Grosses Gewächs, grown in the estate's very first red-wine vintage and presented at the VDP preview in August 2026. Anyone expecting a smooth, fruit-forward Pinot will be surprised: 13.0% ABV, dry, idiosyncratic and still very closed. Some air before pouring does it good.

The Himmelreich lies in Herxheim am Berg north of Bad Dürkheim, where the Mittelhaardt gives way to the Unterhaardt, about eight kilometres north of the Odinstal clearing. The soil is weathered tertiary limestone with loess and 30 to 40 percent active lime, the plot a clos enclosed by six-metre-high limestone walls. Since 2024, Odinstal has farmed the plots of the Schumacher estate here, leased for 20 years.

Spätburgunder is new for the estate. In the forest-ringed hollow 350 metres above the Rhine valley, there isn't enough warmth for red wine; only with Herxheim did the variety enter the house, where Burgundian clones have been planted since the 1980s. The estate has not published details on the ageing of this wine. Estate manager Andreas Schumann works in the cellar on the principle of non-intervention: spontaneous fermentation without temperature control, long lees ageing, a light dose of sulphur before bottling.

On the nose, plum, incense and vegetal notes. On the palate, very deep and calm, without liveliness, in an old-fashioned, austere cut rather than modern fruit polish.

With venison ragout and mashed potatoes, pigeon with beetroot or pasta with mushrooms. Also good with braised beef cheek, duck breast with plums, roasted root vegetables and aged hard cheese.

Odinstal farms strictly biodynamically and has been Demeter-certified since 2013; the label carries the Demeter logo. No red wine matures at the home estate above Wachenheim — this wine is what makes the variety possible there at all.