Aldinger - Untertürkheimer Gips Trollinger Rosé 2022
We are drinking a bottle of Trollinger Rosé 2022 from the vineyard Untertürkheimer Gips from Weingut Aldinger in Württemberg.
With a bit of delay, we ask the question: What are we actually drinking at Christmas? By now, this question comes up on three evenings plus for the blog. Even if from about mid-November onward I keep thinking that this year we could decide in advance and take a bit of stress off the 24th and 25th, it ends up, as every year, being a rather spontaneous affair. The credo is simple anyway: better pack a little more, definitely bubbles, preferably more than one bottle, and definitely across the flavor spectrum. Then you’re on the safe side. Experience shows that planning and reality rarely align, and in particular those bottles you were sure you’d have practically the whole thing to yourself are the very first to be emptied. And that supposed crowd-pleasers are still half full the next morning.
That leaves the bottle for here. The pink brushstroke on the typical Aldinger label at least sits now and then at a tilt behind us on the empty-bottle shelf at our trusted wine tavern in Stuttgart-Wangen and grins at us. A wine far removed from any sense. Rosé, Trollinger, price in the three-digits (at least just barely). In that combination, that ought to be that. But then again in the far south of the republic, high-priced wines are being made from supposedly inferior grape varieties, and 10hoch4 has been around for quite a while now. Somewhere in the subconscious that may even have been a model for what the Aldingers are cobbling together here. Although Trollinger will surely raise a few more incredulous eyebrows. The Swabian in me faces a dilemma. Three digits? Never. But Trollinger, maybe one should after all. Maybe just a little taster. In any case, a sufficiently large discount voucher landed in the inbox a few months before Christmas to give the upper hand to the Trollinger-curious Swabian in the battle with the penny-pinching Swabian. It’s kind of Christmas, after all. The facts about the wine itself are quickly told. It grows in the Untertürkheimer Gips overlooking the stadium, a site that belongs entirely to Weingut Aldinger, is directly pressed and then matured in small French oak for 15 months. Pink wax capsule on top, pink brushstroke across the label, and the attempt to inject a bit of hype into Trollinger is complete. We’re drinking a bottle from 2022. It’s a bit funny that with this, after the Pinot Rosé, we’re already drinking the second half-red wine from the Gips this year. That wasn’t planned.
Holy reduction. This is the most reductive rosé I’ve ever poured. When I think about it, this might even be the only rosé with such clearly perceptible reduction I’ve ever poured. Which certainly also has to do with the fact that rosé in this household, when it is drunk, tends to be more on the natural side of things. And Huber’s, which I’d trust to do something similar, is still somewhere in the box. There’s flint, struck match and spice. Not unpleasant, but a lot of it. Swirling doesn’t change that at all at first. It still has smoke and fruit way in the background, which is really hard to catch. In any case, you wouldn’t recognize it as Trollinger, for this variety there probably aren’t any fanatics for varietal typicity anyway. Honestly, it could also somehow be Chardonnay. Good Chardonnay, though. At least on the nose. On the palate, it’s no longer Chardonnay. There’s lots of peach and red berries, also the reduction of course, the minerality, the tension. The wine is long, intense and very tightly knit on the tongue. Soft in the fruit and incredibly taut in the structure. A contrast that’s really fun. I’m curious what happens with air, because in the first hours swirling brings absolutely no change. Maybe a bit more creaminess. That’s about it. We both like it.
On the second evening the reduction is more smoke than flint and more and more the fruit sneaks past it. Peach, berries, as already on the palate the day before. Now the wine also smells like rosé. Very, very taut, reductive rosé, but rosé. That’s very fine indeed. Creamier on the palate, a bit redder in the fruit, even more peach. Long, dense and taut. It really races over the tongue, has a touch of sweetness from the fruit and is somehow fascinating. That would certainly be exciting with a few years of age under its belt. No idea what will be left when the reduction recedes. And how long it will even take before it pulls back.
I like Trollinger above all when it’s chilled, slightly natural-leaning and plays the chuggable-wine register. Far away from the must-heated, residual-sugar jammy gunk that gets bottled around here. But both, the Jura-natural imitator and the bad ones, are at least a light-year further away from this than from each other. That’s not meant as a judgment, they’re just completely different beverages. This is without question one of the most exciting rosés I’ve had in the glass so far. And one of the ones I like best. Sure, this is one of those wines that exists because it exists. That is surely meant to show what you can make out of Trollinger. With more emphasis on make than on Trollinger. Again, no judgment. Trollinger will remain Trollinger even with this wine. Gutedel is still Gutedel too, though I’ve never tried the 10hoch4. Maybe it will cross my path, I’d welcome it. Would I buy the Gips Rosé again? Nope. But if it ever finds its way into my glass again, I’ll pour every single drop over my tongue with great joy. And as a Christmas wine, yes, I can’t imagine anything better right now.