Holger Koch, "Ja Goutte!" 2021

Holger’s importer “Super Glou” put it this way: “Holger’s wines are grandpa chic.” We can’t think of a better way to frame these playful gems from Vogtsburg-im-Kaiserstuhl, a small town amidst the Kaisterstuhl mountain range of southern Germany’s wider Baden region, famous for housing the Black Forest (of Brothers Grimm lore). The wines produced by Holger & Gabriele Koch are both Burgundian & not – certainly the hyper-site-specificity paired with the literal massale cuttings they’ve cultivated from Puligyn-Montrachet, most notably, give you a conceptual and physical connection to (arguably) the French heart of wine. But perhaps more than anything rigorous or technical, it is the way the wines unfurl with personality, how they are both elegant and deep yet driven by site-specific acidity. Maybe most-so, the wines are made from grapes grown in an environment that has been widely acknowledged now as “New Burgundy” to use an odd-term, given climate change’s ever-encroaching temperatures now meaning grapes ripen here in the more northerly, historically colder, reaches of Baden. Pair this with the pristine soils, much of which is limestone, some loess, some volcanic & you have a something magical in the making. This particular bottling is their most playful though even here you have something worthy of rhapsodizing, or as their importer put it, “Fucked up delicious White Burgundy.” Perfection.

A refreshing, playful blend of Grauburgunder, Müller-Thurgau & Gewürztraminer from 20-year-old vines rooted in loess soils. Fermented separately using wild yeasts (the Muller & Gewurz direct pressed while the Grauburgunder gets a light maceration), and then aged for 14 months, half in stainless and half in old oak barrels. Drink cold cold cold!