Weingut Ratzenberger
Appellation: Mittelrhein
Proprietor: Jochen Ratzenberger
Year Founded: 1956
Size: 20 hectares
Farming: Sustainable
- Organic fertilization from compost and wood chips from the forest
- Fungicides are used sparingly (the climate is cool and damp)
Into the Mist
The three-generation Ratzenberger estate channels the Middle Rhine’s deep historical currents into vivid expressions of reverberating freshness.
Jochen Ratzenberger can still taste the summer of 1976. The Mittelrhein was in the grips of heat like nobody could remember. The 65-degree slopes of his grandfather’s estate shimmered like kiln walls. Dragonflies swarmed over scorched streambeds. So many dragonflies—how could anybody think about grapes when there were this many dragonflies? At least that’s what a young boy was bound to wonder. Meanwhile his father and grandfather tended the vines: vertical rows of Riesling running up towering grades of blue-black slate and clay. The vintage would prove an outlier, exclusively yielding Auslesen Beerenauslesen and Trockenbeerenauslesen—late-harvest and dry-berry-selection cuvées tinged with noble rot.
“I still like to drink these wines today and think back to that year,” says Jochen, who has managed the family winery since 2003.
So do we—along with the scintillating dry Trockens his dad Hans-Jochen likes to uncork, reaching all the way back to the same decade. Both men have lean, wiry frames that attest to a lifetime of slope-scrambling vineyard work, and a lighthearted amiability that echoes the buoyancy of their wines. Which continually amaze us with a mixture of nervy acidity and mineral-lined creaminess that even a quarter-century or more of age simply does not move.
Indeed a feeling of timelessness suffuses their whole 20-hectare estate. The Romans planted the first vineyards in the Mittlerhein, whose craggy, castle-dotted landscape evokes Lord Byron. (It became a UNESCO World Heritage site in 2002.) Summer mornings still have a special hold on Jochen. “With light moisture in the air and the scent of vine blossom, herbs, and grasses, nature is still very quiet,” he says. “When light clouds of mist rise above the Rhine, one feels transported back to the time of Rhine Romanticism. The artists of this era had the same image in mind and were inspired to their works of art.”
Briefly tempted to study archaeology, Jochen instead deepened his knowledge of viticulture and vinification by working in the Rheingau and Mosel before definitively embracing the family’s legacy—which includes multi-generational leadership of the regional VDP.Mittelrhein wine-growers’ association.
The Ratzenbergers’ holdings were “predestined” for Rieslings that transparently convey their terroir. Their Grosse Lage-designated vineyards in the Steeger Valley start on the slate slope of Wolfshöhle, whose clay content imparts a supple roundness to wines that shimmer with stone fruit. Deeper into the fold, at St. Jost, pastel-colored deposits of ancient volcanic sand channel the varietal’s finesse and aromatic intensity. A ways upriver on the Rhine, in Kloster Fürstental, the vines are given wider spacing, ventilating squeaky-clean grapes destined for a frothy, leesy Champagne-style Brut Riesling. And in 2017, the Ratzenbergers went upriver just a bit more, acquiring vineyards surrounding the ruins of the Fürstenberg Castle—and ambitiously re-terracing them horizontally, with an eye toward promoting moisture retention and biodiversity in a steep spot whose cooler temperatures bring out Riesling’s spicy character.
The vineyards are a dizzying sight, but the forests enveloping them are just as important. The Ratzenbergers have long hunted deer and wild boar among the oaks, beeches and cherries, whose fallen branches are chipped and composted to be spread between vine rows that blossom with dragonwort and lemon balm. The family has practiced intra-row greening for nearly 30 years as a part of their sustainable viticulture.
“We want to work as close to nature as possible,” says Jochen, for whom small yields and precision in the cellar are outgrowths of a commitment to the most holistic conception of cultural stewardship. “We live in and with the history of viticulture on the Middle Rhine, and wish to pass on our deep awareness of the importance of how people, nature, the climate and the specific terroir coexist and interact with one another.”
Spoken rather like an archaeologist, which you get the sense that Jochen could well have been had he grown up in a less special spot. But he grew up in this one, and you can taste what sets it apart.
Wines:
Varietal/Blend: Riesling
Vineyard Area: The Riesling of Ratzenberger's Sekt is drawn from the Erste Lage vineyard of Kloster Fürstental, located south of Bacharach near the village of Neurath — just 500 meters from the Rhine. The site features more widely spaced vines than most of the estate's plots, which provides better ventilation and produces the extremely healthy and clean grapes necessary to produce a great sparkling wine.
Soil: Medium-heavy clay slate with more fine loam and sand than in Wolfshöhle (lending more creaminess)
Elevation: 120 to 220 meters
Exposure: South-southeast
Marketing Materials:
Varietal/Blend: Riesling
Vineyard Area: From a selection of vines around Bacharach along the hillside that stretches through the Steeg Valley, including younger vines in Posten, Wolfshöhle and St. Jost.
Soil: Blue clay and black slate mixtures
Elevation: 120 to 220 meters with a 60% slope
Exposure: South
Vinification: Grapes are harvested by hand and brought back to the winery in Bacharach where whole bunches are pressed. The run-off juice ferments and matures in a mix stainless steel vats and large oak casks.
Maturation: Light filtration before bottling.
Marketing Materials:
Varietal/Blend: Riesling
Vineyard Area: From a selection of vines around Bacharach along the hillside that stretches through the Steeg Valley, including younger vines in Posten, Wolfshöhle and St. Jost.
Soil: Blue clay and black slate mixtures
Elevation: 120 to 220 meters with a 60% slope
Exposure: South
Marketing Materials:
Varietal/Blend: Riesling
Vineyard Area: From a parcel south of Ratzenberger's home in Bacharach near Rheindiebach in a vineyard called Schloss Fürstenberg—an Erste Lage-classified site—that occupies a hillside in a valley called Diebach which is similar in topography to Steeg. The climate here is cooler and these slate-based soils contain a slightly higher content of clay which retains more moisture.
Soil: Blue clay and black slate mixtures with a higher clay content than most sites in the Steeg Valley.
Elevation: 200 meters
Exposure: South
Marketing Materials:
Varietal/Blend: Riesling
Vineyard Area: From the Grosse Lage designated vineyard of St. Jost situated behind the Ratzenberger's home in Bacharach-Steeg — the surface area is about 2 hectares.
Soil: Clay-black slate mixtures with deposits of sand
Elevation: 120 to 200 meters with a 60% slope
Exposure: South
Marketing Materials:
Varietal/Blend: Riesling
Vineyard Area: From the Grosse Lage-designated vineyard of St. Jost, situated behind the Ratzenberger's home in Bacharach-Steeg — the surface area is about 2 hectares.
Soil: Clay-black slate with deposits of ancient volcanic sand
Elevation: 120 to 200 meters with a 60% slope
Exposure: South
Maturation: A minimum of one year in oak cask
Marketing Materials:
Varietal/Blend: Rivaner (Müller-Thurgau)
Vineyard Area: From some of Ratzenberger's flatter plots in Bacharach that were aptly planted to Rivaner rather than Riesling.
Soil: Clay-slate mixtures
Elevation: 120 meters
Marketing Materials:
Varietal/Blend: Riesling
Vineyard Area: From a selection of grapes drawn from vines in the Grosse Lage-classified vineyard of Wolfshöhle in Bacharach, a steep hillside with 60 to 65-degree grade.
Soil: Medium-heavy clay slate and crystalline slate
Elevation: 120 to 220 meters
Exposure: South
Marketing Materials:
Varietal/Blend: Pinot Noir
Vineyard Area: From vines directly behind Ratzenberger's home in Bachrach-Steeg, including selections drawn from Wolfshöhle.
Soil: Medium-heavy clay slate with crystalline sand
Elevation: 120 to 200 meters with a 60-65% slope
Exposure: South
Marketing Materials:
