A. Christmann Riesling Trocken

The Wine... Very pretty and concentrated fruit aromas. Pfalz peach in the foreground. All wild yeast. Biodynamic for nine years. 12% alcohol. Some young fruit aroma, akin to watermelon. Sandstone soils impart the apricot/peach aroma.

The Estate... On a hazy grey day I stood in Christmann's courtyard made of clean white walls and damp vibrant spring green almond trees. It was my first day in the Pfalz, and I didn't know what the place would look like. The town was unexceptionally pretty, the landscape rolling and green but not dramatic. For me the Pfalz remained a mostly blank page. Late in our visit Steffen's father took us to a high overlook above their village of Gimmeldingen to improve our sense of the Pfalz. OK, that's France off to our right, not very far away at all. 40km. A ruined castle perched near the vines marked the border until 1835. And the continuous belt of city and industry that spins out most of the new Germany's wealth was mercifully barely beyond view to our left, though I'm certain it would be an orange glow at night. Hard to imagine on this breezy afternoon, with a agrarian elder statesman shepherding us about, that at the edge of his pastoral world begins the grey economy of Mannheim, Frankfurt, Koln.

The Man... Weingut A. Christmann may not be big (130,000 bottles annually is modest) but Steffen is a big deal. He is the head of the VDP, the biggest and most important consortium of quality-minded wine growers in Germany. Steffen seemed to wear the considerable stress of this important post well. His manner is thoughtful, intellectual, you get the sense that moderation and considered action are the norm the at this top-flight organic estate.