Dr Bürklin-Wolf Riesling Gaisböhl G.C. 2023

Located in the village of Ruppertsberg, Gaisböhl dates to medieval times and was one of the five top-rated sites in the 1828 Classification. Today it is a monopole of Dr Bürklin-Wolf, who owns the entire 7.55 hectares of gravelly terraces over layers of clay and red and yellow sandstone. Replanted in 1977.
12.8 % Alc/Vol; 1.1 g/L RS; 6.1 g/L TA.

‘f you taste this quickly, you’ll love the ripe citrus fruit, including the peel, and the ample, beautifully rounded palate, but this has a crisp and dark side that gives it terrific tension. Super-long, flinty finish that takes your breath away. This has decades of life ahead of it. From biodynamically grown grapes. Vegan. Drink from release.’ 97 points, Stuart Pigott, JS Wine Ratings, July 2024.

‘The 2023 Gaisböhl G.C. opens with a deep, clear, fresh and almost earthy nose with wet clay and stone aromas. Full-bodied, round and savory on the palate, this is a generous, precise, saline and crunchy, finely tannic and powerful Riesling with a long, intense and forceful yet still refined and elegant finish. Impressive wine. 12.5% stated alcohol. Diam 30 cork.’ 96 points, Stephan Reinhardt, The Wine Advocate, January 2025.

'The collection of the 2022 vintage at Bürklin-Wolf is outstanding and marks one of the best vintages in the whole of Germany. The 2022 Pechstein G. C. is one of the outstanding Rieslings of the vintage, possibly even ahead of the even more expensive Kirchenstück G. C. If you want to find the finest Rieslings without having to bleed financially, you will also find them among the premiers crus, among which the Wachenheimer Gerümpel P. C. and the Böhlig P. C. come closest to the grands crus in terms of finesse and expression. In the last three years in particular, the Dr. Bürklin-Wolf has established itself as a model German domaine whose Rieslings are a benchmark.' Stephan Reinhardt, The Wine Advocate, December 2023.

The Bürklin-Wolf estate is based in the Mittelhaardt, the quality core of Germany's world-renowned Pfalz, around the towns of Wachenheim, Forst, Deidesheim and Ruppertsberg. Here with 85ha under vine they have the largest family owned wine estate in all of Germany originating in 1597, with a treasure-trove of superb vineyards, at the centre of which lies the great Kirchenstück. Here in the tiny village of Forst, Kirchenstück and its neighbours Jesuitengarten, Ungeheuer and Pechstein, have for centuries been recognised as producing not only some of the world's greatest dry Rieslings, but simply some of the world's greatest wines. In the nineteenth century, prices for these wines exceeded the prices paid for 1st Growth Bordeaux and Grand Cru Burgundy.

In 1990 Bürklin-Wolf began reviewing their vineyard holdings in the context of the 1828 Royal Bavarian Land Tax Classification and after years of exhaustive research they discovered that today's top vineyards are exactly the same as those identified back in 1828. Today they have adopted a Burgundian model with four tiers: Estate, Village, PC (code for Premier Cru) and GC (for Grand Cru). Thus they are focussed on the production of dry, terroir-driven wines and no longer produce the Kabinett and Spätlese styles defined by the (still current) 1971 German Wine Law.