Gunderloch Jean Baptiste Riesling Kabinett Rheinhessen

Description

Gunderloch Jean Baptiste Riesling Kabinett is an off-dry wine from Rheinhessen. 

Winemaker Fritz Hasselbach was catapulted into winemaking when his wife Agnes inherited the Gunderloch Winery. Agnes’s great, great Grandfather was banker Karl Gunderloch, who founded the wine estate in 1890. Fritz had studied winemaking at Geisenheim Wine School. After graduating, he was a winegrowing teacher and a farm adviser for the government, advising growers how to plant vineyards. Agnes, who worked as a high school teacher and Fritz decided to retire from their jobs and go into the wine business. Their first vintage was 1979.

The Gunderloch estate is located in the small village of Nackenheim. This town is situated on the banks of the River Rhine at the foot of the Rothenberg, the famed hillside vineyard site. It is said that Karl Gunderloch used to trek from Gundersblum, his place of birth, to his bank in Mainz. On these daily journeys he carefully observed how the sun played off the hills and that, in some parts of the vineyards, the winter snow used to melt more quickly that others. Based on these observations he purchased vineyard property that appeared to collect sunlight most efficiently. Since the untimely death of Fritz in 2016, his son Johannes has taken over and has upgraded the old winery and cellar whilst also building a new winery next door. This has allowed him to stay in the centre of Nackenheim near the family’s best vineyard holdings.

The only Kabinett in Gunderloch’s range, Gunderloch Jean Baptiste Riesling Kabinett is a classical, off-dry Riesling typical for the minerality of the red soil from the Nackenheim Rothenberg, Nierstein Pettenthal and Hipping. The wine offers harmonious Riesling fruit with a fine acidity and light richness.

Jean Baptiste Gunderloch is the main character in Carl Zuckmayer’s play “The Jolly Vineyard”, this wine is dedicated to him.