For Hans-Josef Becker, the dry Riesling reign began with his first vintage in 1971. Yet the pinnacle comes forty-four years later.

Today we present a tiny, final parcel of his top dry wine, the Walkenberg Auslese Trocken. This is his Grand Cru dry Riesling, and it is a formidable monument to one of the top vintages of the last few decades.

We are offering special 4-bottle pricing: one bottle to enjoy now (we’d recommend a healthy decant) and three to bury deep in the cellar. This is a wine that will make old bones gaining even more elegance, clarity and finesse as the years go by.

Approaching its fifth birthday, the wine is only now beginning to reveal a generous, vinous mid-palate. Bright, herbal citrus notes (grapefruit and meyer lemon) are interwoven with white peach and a wildly complex rocky minerality.

Yet what makes this wine one of the top wines of this vintage, and one of the greatest wines HaJo has ever made, can be summed up easily: clarity and structure.

This is the Rheingau, with all of its legendary power, imbued with something of the cut and rigor (and acidity) of the Saar. This is what HaJo is famous for; there is no one else in the Rheingau who even comes close to this kind of definition. The wine, even with all of its generosity, is absolutely gripping, with a fortress-like structure that easily contains and balances the lusciousness and crystalline fruit.

It is hard to over-emphasize HaJo’s unique position in the world of German wine. An outsider for decades, Becker focused on natural fermentations, organic viticulture and structured, mineral and age-worthy dry Rieslings 20 years before the younger generation began to come around. Now, Becker is widely considered a living legend. He has finally gained the status he truly deserves.

And while it is something of a “must buy” for serious German collectors, as we’ve said before many times, the greatest dry Rieslings speak as much to Chablis and great mineral-driven white wines as anything else. This wine is strongly recommended to any lover of great white wine, period.

To order, email offers@crushwineco.com or call the store at (212) 980-9463.

Joe Salamone

Wine Buyer
Crush Wine & Spirits