Christmann 'Idig' GG Riesling 2020

While I often eye these GGs off, I often opt for something else thinking that it is a crime to drink them so young. So when a friend showed up to a dinner/tasting recently with this exact wine, I was both pleased to get a look at it but also sceptical as to how much it would be showing at such a young age. My scepticism quickly disappeared though. This was looking extremely good and much more open-knit than expected. Smart people will stash some of this deep in their cellar. – Ches Cook. 

Idig was more or less forgotten until the early 1990s, when the Christmann family of Gimmeldingen purchased choice parcels of the original site and “put Idig on the map”, with recognition and awards by leading German and international wine critics for its top Riesling. Idig is the cornerstone of the A. Christmann estate and one of the most highly prized sites in the Pfalz. It's situated on top of solid limestone, deposited in the tertiary age from limestone deposits created during the break-up of the Upper Rhine Plain. The top layers of the site are made up of “terra fusca”, a combination of chalk, clay and red sandstone eroded from the Haardt hills over millennia and deposited on the slopes of Mittelhaardt. In the top layers of the soil there is a large amount of limestone but also a substantial amount of basalt. The GG grapes are selected according to strict criteria over one or two rounds of picking, taking only healthy fruit at the peak of ripeness, with yields generally around 40hl/ha.

So deep, it feels like it’s pulling you in the direction of the centre of the earth! Yet, another side of the wine seems to float above the world. Radically mineral finish that leaves you in no doubt about this great dry Riesling’s future! From biodynamically grown grapes with Respekt certification. Drinkable now, but best from 2023. 98 points. Stuart Pigott, jamessuckling.com July 2021