Scheuermann - Friedelsheim Rosengarten 2021

A glance at the Scheuermann winery’s homepage might make you think not much has changed since we last had the Rosé here. The wine is, unsurprisingly, still wine made from grapes, unbound and as grown. And somehow, that’s a good thing, the consistency in such a young winery. Because every time I come across the Rosé, it is just as good as it was back then, and when I think of a rosé I really like, it’s the Scheuermann’s stoneware bottle that comes to mind.

I also have to say, although all the slogans sound like murky yeast funk and barnyard, I’ve never actually had anything truly wild turn up at the table from Scheuermann. Lately, though, there has been the occasional sparkling wine, and now, after the German Chardonnay was so good last week, I decided it was time for this bottle of Rosengarten. In the winery’s three-tiered pyramid, estate wine, village wine, single vineyard wine, this puts us right at the top.

The Friedelsheimer Rosengarten, located between Friedelsheim and Gönnheim on the Mittelhaardt in the Pfalz, provides the loess-rich soil on which the grapes grow. I always have to chuckle when I see Gönnheim on a map, a chuckle that only works in German I guess. These grapes are then whole-cluster pressed, spontaneously fermented, and subsequently matured in small oak barrels for about 2 years. About half of the barrels are new.

Very nutty on the nose, rather reductive with a bit of funk. Not particularly charming at first, and you can clearly sense the new oak. Quite a different story when you take the first sip. It’s extremely fresh, very citrusy, lemon zest, yogurt, and if you asked me now if there’s new oak involved, I’d have no idea. You really hardly taste it. Air dispels some of the reduction, the nuttiness remains, becomes spicier, grittier, and you’ll search in vain for fruit. Instead, there are herbs. But every sip delivers that mouthfeel. Holy moly, it’s good. Cool, straight, smooth, with less lactic character now, although the yogurt never completely disappears, then the length, the lemon zest, and way in the back, structure while the front of the tongue becomes salty. That’s extremely good. Truly.

A night in the half-empty bottle in the fridge darkens the aroma, at least on the nose. The spice still dominates, but now and then, a hint of dark yellow fruit comes through, while the reduction has finally disappeared. It takes a few moments, then the wood returns. The wine has become creamier to drink, and here too, darker. Lots of orange juice, overall, the Chardonnay is enormously juicy and comes across quite differently than it did the first evening. It’s no longer quite so salty, but now has the bitterness of the white membranes between orange segments, some texture from the wood, and, of course, the fruit. It’s different, but no less fantastic. It drinks exceptionally well, and will undoubtedly continue to do so for many years. And when the bouquet opens up a bit more, it will become an outstanding all-around package. For now, there’s still a bit of unruliness on the nose, but maybe it just needs time to digest the wood, and it should take all the time it needs.

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