So far as I can tell Hans Josef Becker anticipated the dry wine movement in the Rheingau (and in much of Germany in a way) a few decades before anyone else.
Working in the cellars of the famous Schloss Eltz in the late 1960s, a young Hans Josef (call him “HaJo”) tasted the dry Rieslings still in barrel (after a full natural fermentation and before the addition of the “süssreserve”) and decided that that, dear friends, was what he wanted to make. His journey with the dry wines began with the 1971 vintage.
Now, nearly a half-century later we present Becker’s take on the classic 2020 vintage. When we were at the estate in August of 2021, the wines hadn’t yet been bottled; we only tasted them in March.
As always, Becker gets the final word on the vintage.
Please check out our full notes on the vintage below – definitely do not delay doing any useful work to review them. For me, the vintage 2020 is the “cool-cool” at Becker; all the wines are threaded a bit more finely, they have more bounce. It is a perfect marriage of ripeness and acidity, in a way we don’t see all that much anymore. In 2020, as a sign of the freshness of the vintage, we have the return of the fabled Becker Kabinett Trocken. That’s the good news. The bad news is there is no Auslese Trocken; the collection ends at the Spätlese Trocken “Alte Reben.” The good news (again) is that this wine is ****ing awesome.
As a bonus for being you (and for Hans Josef being Hans Josef) we have decided to bring in a back-vintage Spätburgunder Kabinett Trocken from the Walkenberg. I’m honestly not quite sure how to describe Becker’s Pinot Noirs: Hans Josef does a high-pressure fermentation so the grapes are forced through a semi-carbonic fermentation before they burst and then the juice ferments very warm and under pressure. The result is textural, meaty, rustic, very herbal and dark. It’s Pinot Noir, it’s delicate – but it will punch you in the face too and probably not apologize.
As I sat there, outside in the wine garden next to the Rhine on a beautiful March evening, we contemplated this wine. Hans Josef sat next to me as we both swirled the wine in our glasses. And he said to me, “It’s like Volnay.” And I thought to myself, this is not like Volnay at all. I love this man.
This is a Pinot Noir disguised as a Spätburgunder wrapped in a riddle surrounded by a Kabinett Trocken; you should try and grab a few bottles of this and a few cases of everything else.
For more information or to order, please email – orders@vomboden.com – or reach out to your friendly vom Boden sales representative!
The order deadline is next Friday May 20th; all wines will arrive in July or thereabouts, we hope.
2020 Riesling Wallufer Trocken (Village-Level) ~$25
Perhaps the most ethereal and light-handed Becker I’ve had since 2017? Clocking in at only 11.5% alcohol this wine has about five grams RS and feels sorta suave and easy-going – it has all the oceanic saline notes you love in Becker, all the subterranean intrigue, but honestly it’s a bit friendlier, more finessed and serpentine with great apple and citrus notes, salt and flowers. This is going to make a lot of people very happy. I’m only one person, but it made me happy.
2020 Riesling Walkenberg Kabinett Trocken ~$30
God bless Kabinett Trocken – this wine is so fucking beautiful – everything I love about Kabinett Trocken (the lightness, the delicacy, the energy) is here. I missed it so. Sitting there at the estate, I asked Hans Josef why this was so damn good – I thought 2020 was sorta hot… he sat there, not annoyed but thinking. And after a bit of a pause, he said: “I don’t know. Why does the sun shine, why is the weather so beautiful?” And that was that. Honest to god this is what happened.
2020 Riesling Walkenberg Spätlese Trocken ~$32
As much as I love Kabinett Trockens – and you know I do – I’m loath to say that the Spätlese Trocken are probably the heart of the vintage. The younger-vine bottling (this one) is explosive, fruity, airy, aromatic, all-encompassing – it sorta grabs you and shakes you around a little with citrus, layers of stone fruit and a gravelly, precious minerality. When I wrote above that the vintage was “bouncy,” this was the wine I was thinking about. So much to love in this wine.
2020 Riesling Walkenberg Spätlese Trocken “Alte Reben” ~$37
As with 2019, again the Spätlese “Alte Reben” is where the magic is – this is the best wine of the collection. For as gregarious and outward-looking as the normalé is, the old-vine bottling is exactly the opposite: stern, strict, defined, inward and incisive. There is more density, as you’d expect, but it doesn’t feel heavier (or even wider or hotter or bigger) – it just feels deeper. Superb structure, that saline-rocky-gravelly Becker acidity. Truly magical wine – showcasing just how damn classic (meaning good), classic (meaning classic) can be.
2020 Riesling Berg Bildstock Kabinett ~$30
While HaJo is more of a dry wine specialist, he will make some Prädikat wines – never too much – and they are icons of an age gone by… while they are not nervy like Mosel wines are nervy, they definitely have more energy and zing to them than nearly any other Rheingau Prädikat wines I’ve had. I didn’t taste the 2020 Kabinett when I was there, or I tasted it but didn’t take notes? I remember them saying they had an off-dry they hadn’t bottled… but in any event, they have a Kabinett too. It’s cheap and it’s rare – that’s about all I can write.
2014 Spätburgunder Walkenberg Kabinett Trocken ~$39