More about Wasenhaus

Germany makes the best Riesling in the world, a universally accepted truth. But as Eric Asimov recently discussed, there’s more to Germany than the big R. Loads of other grapes excel across the country. Some, like Pinot Noir, you may be more familiar with than others: for instance, Weissburgunder.

Weissburgunder is just the German word for Pinot Blanc, a grape that doesn't get a lot of attention in the shadow of its more popular siblings: Pinot Noir and Pinot Gris(gio). But after tasting through some aged bottles in winemakers' personal cellars, we are starting to think it's actually a conspiracy. They're just keeping the best wines for themselves.

None of these great examples ever seemed to cross the Atlantic, until Stephen Bitterolf—the star importer of Keller, Lauer, Haart and more—brought us the Wasenhaus wines last year and our minds were blown.

The domain, run by two friends (one of whom is the vineyard manager of Burgundy's Domaine de Montille) is tiny, at just 1.5 hectares of land. When output is this small, it’s hard to buy the wine, and it took many visits over many vintages before Stephen was able to secure a small allocation. A couple of vintages later and everyone else has figured out our conspiracy hunch. The Wasenhaus wines now sell out before they even hit the docks.

Region: Baden, a warm corner of Germany where French grapes can ripen just fine on limestone soils. In fact, many of their vines are on north-facing slopes to keep ripeness under control.