Wine Advocate 92
"From colored marks and gypsum Keuper soils, the dry (trocken) 2021 Riesling offers a pure, bright, aromatic, flinty, beautifully mineral and reductive bouquet of white stone fruits intertwined with notes of iodine and crushed stones. Vital and lush on the palate, this is a straight, fresh and frisky dry Riesling with a stimulating grip and intense, round and aromatic fruit. This is a first-class estate Riesling from Württemberg's north. Too good to be true but highly recommended. 12% stated alcohol. Screw cap. Tasted in April 2022."

Tasting Notes
Intense nose with lots of yellow fruit from vineyard peaches and citrus fruits, but also from fresh pineapple and ripe Elstar apple. Very dense and minerally characterized, still slightly exotic notes, very delicate white flowers and a hint of anise at the end. A spicy and piquant start with lots of juicy peach fruit, pineapple and fresh herbs; Acidity and sweetness complement each other perfectly, wonderfully refreshing Riesling with an extremely present on the palate with finely interwoven mineral notes and a long finish.

The Estate
Though Wrttemberg is not yet well known in the states, the Dautel family is a leading producer with grape growing history going back 500 years. Like many estates, the previous story was one of mixed agriculture. The region is protestant and reformation dictated that property be divided between all children; individual parcels of vineyard land got smaller and smaller with each passing generation. Co-ops were founded and came to dominate the area, the idea being that the smaller plots of land could be reunited through production rather than ownership.

The region itself is marked by ancient, very steep terraced vineyards, among the most beautiful and forbidding youll see in Germany, including the Mosel-terrasen. These steep vineyards hug the Neckar and Ahr rivers while the rest of the region, similar to Austrias Weinvertel region, consists of a rolling landscape with isolated steeper hillsides. Soils range from calcareous marl, Gipskeuper (deeper clay with a high gypsum content, which is common in Franken), a rare soil called Schilfsandstein (reed sandstone) which is a hard yellow-ish sandstone often used in building construction, and our old pal Muschelkalk which, as you know, means fossil-bearing limestone.

In the 1970s, Wrttemberg was known for Blue Nun and all that sweet shit and thermo-vinification. It was more or less a bulk production. It was not quality focused. This is more or less the story of German wine after WWII take Rheinhessen for example. All the wines were sweet, you had to go to Alsace if you wanted dry wines . says Christian Dautel.

Ernst Dautel, Christians father, was the first generation in his family to attend winemaking school in Geisenheim in the 1970s. When he returned home he decided to stop working with the coop, though his father was one of the founding members of the coop in Meimsheim. Ernst didnt want to throw his fruit in with all the rest and get some bad quality wine out of it. Ernst is an iconoclast and one of the first producers in the Wrttemberg to estate bottle wines. His wife Hannalore was from Bnnigheim, where the winery is located now, and; they were married in the late 1970s. Their eldest son, Christian, was exposed to wine at a very young age, recounting picnics in the vineyards and family vacations that always included visits to great estates.

There were only two countries we always went to on holidays one is called Italy and the other is called France. This was it. My whole childhood I was all the time in wine regions. I was a meter tall and I already saw Cos dEstournel, La Tour, blah blah blah. My father was well if you want to put it in a bad way you could say he was a copy and paste man. Everywhere he traveled he saw things and got new experiences. He saw new things and realized why cant I do things like this here in my region as well? I have the potential from the vineyards, so why cant I also use why cant I also use oak? Why cant I work in this way, more quality minded? And this is how things started. Says Christian.

Ernst became well known, in part for challenging the status quo in the region but also for making excellent wines, though they were not always regionally accepted. He joined the VDP in 1999 and the estate remains one of the very best in Wrttemberg, now under the guidance of Christian, who returned home in 2010.

Christian attended Geisenheim like his father, with Andreas Huetwohl (von Winning) and Georg Rumpf (Kruger-Rumpf). During his studies, Dautel worked with a winemaker named Chris Burke who worked for Laurel Ridge in Oregon but made his own wines under the label Roots in the Willamette Valley. Roots was made at a custom crush facility where Dominique Lafon was making the Seven Springs wines at this time. There, Christian met Lafon and Christophe Vial, the cellar master for Lafon since 1999. After Oregon, Christian worked at Mount Langi Ghiran in Australia, Saronsberg in South Africa and Weninger in Austria before moving to Mersault in 2009 to work with his friend Christophe at Lafon in Mersault. In 2010 Christian finished his studies and returned home. 2010 was the first vintage that Christian was in charge, though he notes, It wasnt that I wasnt a part of the winery before. I was always part of the winery, just like my father is still a part of the winery; its just that the balance was has changed.

Christian is a thoughtful winemaker repeating the refrain we always hear from quality minded growers the wines are made in the vineyards. Like other top winemakers from his generation taking over successful wineries from their parents, he has a huge amount of respect for what his father accomplished and sees no need to tear down the work that has been done by making abrupt changes.

Today, Christian farms four Grand Cru (Grosse Lage) sites, Michaelsberg Grosse Lage (colored marl), Steingrben Grosse Lage (Schilfsandstein), Schupen Grosse Lage (Gipskeuper, weathered limestone) and Forstberg Grosse Lage (colored marl and stony clay with limestone inclusions), and two 1er Cru (Erste Lage) sites Sonnenberg Erste Lage (Schilfsandstein, Gipskeuper) and Wurmberg Erste Lage (Muschelkalk).

Christians goal is to continue to bring out the specific character of each terroir without losing the inherent flavor of the grape variety planted to each vineyard. Wines are not made by formula, but by taking in to account the feeling for each site and variety. These are singular wines, unlike anything weve come across in Germany.