NAHE NOW Part 2: The Heart of the Matter
And the Matter has a Heart!
By Stuart Pigott - last revision: 06.09.26
Please excuse the length of this, but a story as inspiring story as this demands space and time to be told properly, so gather around the campfire and listen...
I've been following the wines of the Nahe - or have they been following me? - for well over 40 years and the 2025s from the top producers of the Middle Nahe - the heart of the region - are overwhelmingly beautiful wines. They have all the qualities that inspired me at the first encounter, one morning in late April, 1984 at the then the Nahe State Domaine (today Gut Hermannsberg). It is my honour, a humbling honour, to present the 2025 wines from the Middle Nahe to you. Let's start with the words of Helmut Dönnhoff of the famous Dönnhoff winery:
„In 2025 the grapes looked exactly how I expect perfect Riesling grapes to look. The vintage has an incredible inner concentration, but isn’t heavy, rich...the wines are puristically clear!“ That means they are classic Nahe Rieslingswith vibrant fruit, minerality and enornous freshness. How did this come about? Helmut's description of the 2025 harvest start to explain.
„The whole crop was brought in during September. After the rain came the rot, real rot…before that there was a point when it was clear that the grapes would never be better than at this moment. Our sweet wines were all harvested before the dry ones, grapes with some Botrytis and excellent acidity. The dry wines were made from perfectly clean grapes.“
The 2025 Dönnhoff Rieslings - dry, off-dry and nobly-sweet - are amazing Nahe wines, but there were a few other vintages you could say that about like 2003, 2005, 2015 and 2019. For the off-dry and nobly-sweet wines 1990 and 2001 belong in the same league. The 2025s will need to mature in the bottle for a few years before all these vintages can be realistically compared with each other, but there's no doubt in my mind that 2025 is something very special.
It might seem like a cliche to say that Jakob Schneider's talent has blossomed in the shadows of Helmut Dönnhoff and his son Cornelius, but I think not having to stand in the spotlight very often really helped Jakob develop as a winemaker. The last years his wines just got better and better, and 2025 is the high-point of modern times for this winery. Jakob's description of the harvest provided more explanation of how the vintage took the narrow path to concentrated elegance.
„July was very dry, then came the rain that we's prayed for, but we continued to get some rain into the harvest. We started on the 12. September and the first 9 days were dry. We really gave some gas on those days! The grapes were extremely clean, so it turned out to be the right decision. After the next rain the harvest continued very well, but it was necessary to do extreme slection of the grapes to cut out the rot.“
Rebecca Crusius of the Dr.Crusius winery in Traisen had what is surely the best vintage of her young career. Here, the purchase of additional vineyards in the famous Bastei vineyard site (scroll down to the photo below) several years ago was fully rewarded. And the trio of Bastei GG plus nobly sweet Auslese and BA makes an important statement about the greatness of this site. Rebecca's grandfather Hans Crusius who I first got to know 40 years ago, would be delighted and proud!
The Gut Hermannsberg winery has been in the ownership of the Reidel family (who are German, and not Swiss as often claimed), since 2009. Some of you know that I worked for this winery for a while, but I left just over five and half years ago. Since then some excellent decisions were made and quality only improved. Stunning as the 2015 and 2019 vintages are, I think this is the best range of wines I ever tasted here. The pinnacle is the twin late-released 2021 GG Reserve wines of the Hermannsberg and Kupfergrube. 2021 was a much better vintage in this part of the Nahe than most other places in Germany.
And with the Gut Hermannsberg Nahe Riesling Kupfergrube GG Reserve 2021 I return to the wine that stunned me on that morning in April 1984. It too was from the Kupfergrube. When I lifted the glass tomy nose and smelt it lightning struck me, and that energy is with me to this day. I recommend it!
GREAT VALUE 2025 DRY NAHE RIESLINGS
Dr. Crusius Nahe Riesling Traiser Rotenfels trocken 1G 2025 - 12.5% / The combination of deep peachy fruit, Amalfi lemon freshness and lemon blossom delicacy makes this a joyful wine that’s the perfect antidote to this evening’s news. And although it has excellent concentration and somereal power, it still flows gracefully over the palate. 95 (SP)
Dönnhoff Nahe Riesling Roxheimer Höllenpfad 1G 2025 - 12.5% / A cornucopia of yellow fruits envelops you as soon as you pick up the glass, yet this is so refined! Cooler and with more tension on the palate than the nose suggested. The great energy make this a completely uplifting wine. Incredible purity and wet-stone freshness at the finish. 95 (SP)
Gut Hermannsberg Nahe Riesling Vom Vulkan 2025 - 13% / A great village wine and a brilliant expression of the volcanic soul of the vineyards of Schlossböckelheim! Great pineapple and ripe grapefruit aromas plus a bold, smoky minerality. Fantastic energy at the very long, crystaline finish. 95 (SP)
Jakob Schneider Nahe Riesling Niederhäuser Hermannshöhle trocken 2025 - 12.5% / Rippling with beautifully ripe peachy fruit, yet bright and nimble on the palate, this tells a racy tale of the most famous vineyard site on the Middle Nahe. Excellent fine tannins that are already beautifully integrated in the precisely proportioned whole. Very long salty and spicy finish. 96 (SP)
81 wines tasted