By Al Drinkle
Nobody lacks self-discipline like us at Metrovino. We make valiant attempts at restraint, but you’d never know it given the fact that we import 80+ disparate German Riesling labels each vintage. Despite its amorphous parameters, every year we encounter phenomenal wines in our travels that don’t fit neatly into our bloated “portfolio”. When a brief encounter with such a wine makes clear that a future without it would be impoverished, empty and meaningless, we import said wine for reasons of emotion — regardless of its lack of glass-pour potential at restaurants or inherent appeal to trophy hunters. (Yes, these wines often dwell in that strange financial purgatory that's beyond most restaurants’ BTG budgets, yet affordable enough to be regarded with suspicion by the many who assume that exceptional quality only correlates with lavish spending).
Consider this a plight to celebrate beauty in the world, and to encourage more of it. The last thing that we want to do, dear reader, is to dismiss a significant winegrowing achievement with apathy, in turn denying you a singular drinking experience. So without further ado, here’s our third offer in the “Leave No Beautiful Riesling Behind” series.
Wagner-Stempel - Heroes of the “Swiss” Rheinhessen
It was a sunny June afternoon in 2011, and I was pulling into Weingut Wagner-Stempel’s resplendent courtyard for the first time. My future friend, Oliver Müller, was busy pouring wine samples to a number of guests who enjoyed their sips under the merciful shade of a 300-year-old chestnut tree. I introduced myself and I’ll never forget the bewildered expression on Oliver’s face when I told him that I had come from Canada in search of Riesling.
“Well, you’ve come to the right place,” he said, and I’ll now paraphrase, “but how the hell did you find us? You are aware that you’re in the middle of nowhere?!?”
The particular nowhere that I found myself in the middle of is the western corner of Germany's Rheinhessen region, much closer to the Nahe river than to the Rhein. For reasons that elude me, it’s referred to as the Rheinhessische Schweiz, or Swiss Rheinhessen, and from its highest points one can see the central Nahe to the west and Rüdesheim’s vineyards in the Rheingau to the north. The Rheinhessen itself is the country's largest wine region — home to some of the best and some of the worst winegrowers in the country — and a place where viticulture is one among many agricultural pursuits. As one might expect from its sprawling nature, the Rheinhessen boasts a multiplicity of soil types and mesoclimates and it's not uncommon that one will find a prestigious vineyard directly abutting a canola field.
Wagner-Stempel is based in Siefersheim, a sleepy village of 1000 or so residents and one restaurant (much better than zero — it's saved my life on more than one occasion!). It's inordinately cool here by Rheinhessen standards, and the soils of the general area are the result of volcanic activity 290 million years ago. A porphyry quarry just west of the village is testament to the purity of this particular volcanic bedrock in the area. There's a beautiful hiking route around the village, but I suspect that most visitors arrive for the same reason that I do, and that's in pursuit of Wagner-Stempel's extraordinary wines.
Nine generations of the Wagner family have farmed in the Swiss Rheinhessen, but it wasn't until the early '90s that current proprietor Daniel Wagner devoted his attention solely to wine production. At that time the Rheinhessen was known for little more than a source for such German wine embarrassments as Liebfraumilch, Black Tower, Blue Nun and the like, but Daniel had his sights set on the kind of quality that had been long forgotten in his neck of the woods. He knew that Siefersheim was home to two historically-celebrated vineyards, and when he set about obtaining and restoring parcels within these steeper sites his neighbours thought that he had taken leave of his senses. Before long he was joined by his life-and-business partner, Cathrin, and deeper into the 2000s by the aforementioned Oliver Müller who is self-described as Daniel's right-hand-man.
Observers far more insightful and less subjective than myself have pointed out that Wagner-Stempel is often unfairly overlooked when one discusses the heroes of Rheinhessen's wine revolution. Daniel Wagner, a prototypical introvert, very much was and is a contemporary (not to mention a friend) of Phillip Wittmann and Klaus-Peter Keller whose eponymous estates have both become eminently more famous. But while the latter two possess outsize personalities and winemaking visions that transcend their respective backyards, Daniel is content to be synonymous with Siefersheim (where?!?), and is far more comfortable working in his vineyards than he is doing anything else.
In addition to reinstating Siefersheim as a source for distinct and thrilling wine, the team at Wagner-Stempel has established themselves as one of the greatest Riesling producers on the planet.
2023 Wagner-Stempel Siefersheim Riesling “Porphyr" - Rheinhessen, Germany
Wagner-Stempel's liquid postcard from Siefersheim is named “Porphyr" after the volcanic soil. The vast majority of their Riesling vines are planted in two historically-celebrated Grand Cru vineyards, namely Heerkretz and Höllberg, and the Porphyr bottling is a declassification from these sites. For Burgundy lovers, this would be the equivalent of a Chambolle-Musigny producer making a village wine from declassified Musigny and Bonnes-Mares — except that you can afford this version, and anybody who finds the comparison to be ridiculous obviously hasn't had much experience with Wagner-Stempel's Rieslings.
The house style here embraces the charmingly austere side of dryness. Partly because of internal personal preferences and partly because of the growing conditions, Wagner-Stempel doesn’t attempt chubby, bombastic Rieslings, instead capitalising upon their marginal growing conditions to usher svelte, “chilly", electric wines into fruition.
One of the many agreeable motifs of the 2023 vintage is that even aggressively dry wines have an inherent modicum of cushion preventing them from teetering into sadomasochistic territory. Indeed, the 2023 Porphyr is dry as hell and walks a deliciously precarious precipice, but falls safely on the side of mouthwatering exhilaration.
When I snuck a bottle of ‘23 Porphyr into a movie theater I was worried that I'd get busted because it’s so fervently aromatic! It's also abundantly complex, the aromas functioning like an angelic chorus of disparate but intricately-connected notes that unfold in beguiling unison. In fact, this exudes what I've come to know as the very definition of Porphyr — a combination of purity, breathtaking definition and scintillating depths of aroma and flavour that have everything to do with intricacy but very little to do with delicacy. It’s simultaneously elegant and intense.
Unique to this vintage is a gossamer, blood-orange twist lurking enchantingly amongst an interminable range of non-tropical, ethereal and silver-plated fruit, all coyly playing off the smoldering, almost pungent minerality. The latter takes us into hedonic caves alight with bioluminescent Maldon salt stalactites and diamond-refracted glacial water. The wine also recalls the aromatic vividity of gauzy autumn evenings, like the ones that it was born into during the fall of 2023.
The palate is stuffed, nay crammed, with chilly, delicate, neon flavours that just won't stay still, and never has a full-bodied Riesling ever been so slimline and slippery (this is 12.5% alcohol which is immodest by Riesling standards). There’s a mouthfeel akin to the respite of shade, and even the animated, tensile architecture of the wine is glacial… It perfectly harnesses the coolness of Siefersheim and loads it with extract, adding to the general profundity. It’s not necessarily a meditative wine, but the spirit of the wine itself is meditating and asking you to join it in contemplative repose.
I’m tired of writing fanciful food-pairing recommendations for wines that are as versatile at the table as this frisky Riesling is. I’ve had success with dishes as varied as veal tortellini in Gorgonzola sauce to spiced lamb pide to traditional Wiener schnitzel. Most recently it was a pile of asparagus and Parmigiano atop a lavishly buttered slice of sourdough and that was lovely. Avoid dishes that are ponderously laden with tomato sauce and you’ll be fine.
As the bottles of Porphyr in my basement get older and increasingly sublime, I’m ever more convinced that there's nothing better to cram down there than the latest release of this eminently versatile cuvée. The 2023 incarnation is a delight to drink young (which I’m doing while I write this), but as time passes its voltage will settle and its flavours will melt towards custardy, beeswaxy revelations. The salinity, austerity and sense of place that it retains over the years will always cause shivers. In an ideal world where one has the requisite thickness of wallet and capacity for storage, one would purchase a case, decanting and drinking part of it over the next year or two and the remainder between the wine’s 10th and 25th birthdays.
