Weissburgunder GG Monopol 2024

Medium straw yellow with golden highlights. The bouquet stays delicate: ripe quince, white blossom and chalk, with a smoky note beneath. A Pinot Blanc built on tension rather than richness.

The monopole vineyard Wachenheimer Odinstal sits 350 metres above the Rhine valley, a hollow enclosed by ten hectares of mixed forest with no viticultural neighbours. Across five hectares, four rock types lie side by side: basalt from the nearby Pechsteinkopf, shell limestone, marl and yellow variegated sandstone, a legacy of the faults of the Rhine rift valley. At this altitude the vines ripen around twenty days later than in the valley, which gives the wines freshness and drive.

Pinot Blanc, known in Germany as Weissburgunder, benefits from the cool nights of the site. Estate manager Andreas Schumann has run the VDP estate under Demeter certification since 2013 and follows a principle of non-intervention in the cellar: spontaneous fermentation without temperature control, extended lees ageing, minimal use of sulphur. The wines, as he puts it, become as dry as they want to be, usually bone dry. 13.0% ABV.

The attack is lean and cool, lemon and mandarin up front, underpinned by a saline minerality that draws the wine out long. The acidity leads with precision, the finish stays dry and taut.

With grilled pikeperch or sole, with light poultry with herbs, with asparagus and hollandaise sauce or green asparagus risotto. Young hard cheese and baked fresh goat's cheese also pair well.

Five suckler cows graze between the vines, and bees kept by beekeeper Andreas Kramer pollinate the meadows: the estate is designed as a closed organism under Demeter principles. The surrounding forest belt keeps outside drift at bay. The Demeter logo appears on the label.