Rheinhessen, Pfalz & Mittelrhein: A Game of Patience

BY ANNE KREBIEHL MW | SEPTEMBER 11, 2025

Two thousand twenty-four was a challenging year for the winemakers of the Mittelrhein, Rheinhessen and Pfalz. Some were hit by frost, and all had to contend with rain and moisture in spring and summer. A hot and dry August helped balance things out, but producers had to practise patience when it came to Riesling. For once, sugar ripeness did not race ahead of phenolic ripeness and aromatic development. Topography, exposure and soil type made a big difference. April frosts hit the cooler northwest corner of Rheinhessen, select lateral valleys of the Mittelrhein and exposed sites in the southern Pfalz. However, certain spots like Rheinhessen’s Red Slope or the Mittelrhein’s Bopparder Hamm—both prominent, warm, stony and steep slopes facing the river Rhine—were clear winners, yielding wines of immense brilliance and wonderful extract. Across these three regions, alcohol levels remained moderate. This is positive, as few other countries can pack so much flavour into such lean wines.

Weather Data

The winegrowing regions of Rheinhessen (Germany’s largest), Pfalz and Mittelrhein (Germany’s smallest) are all within the federal state of Rheinland-Pfalz. In its records for Rheinland-Pfalz, the German Weather Service noted initial mildness in April and described the late April spring frosts as a “blow” for nature. May continued with “exceptionally high rainfall” that reached up to 250 liters (equivalent to 250 millimeters) in the Haardt Mountains of the Pfalz. June saw daytime highs of just 15°C and summer heat of 30°C, accompanied by torrential downpours. July was warm but still brought much rain. August saw some heat spikes, to which I can personally attest; for last year’s report, I arrived in Ingelheim, Rheinhessen in mid-August, and the mercury still read 35°C in the evening—just below the 50th degree of latitude! The first half of September remained summery, but temperatures rarely exceeded 15°C in the second half. More rain followed in October.

A view of the mighty Rhine from a vantage point on the Roter Hang, looking along the Rothenberg vineyard and further down to Pettenthal.

Mittelrhein: Distance Made all the Difference

In the Mittelrhein, it all depended on where you were. The closer to the Rhine, the better. The exposed, steep slate curve of the Bopparder Hamm had no frost, sufficient water throughout the growing season, and its well-drained soils never became waterlogged. Johannes Müller noted the more gradual and even ripening of 2024 on this prominent site. He picked his last grapes here on October 15. after several passes through the vineyard. Müller’s colleagues in the lateral valleys were less lucky. Jochen Ratzenberger, who has sites in two lateral valleys, lost 50% of his fruit in the Steeg valley to frost. Likewise, frost took the fruit from four hectares of Cecilia Jost’s vineyards in lateral valleys. However, all the wines of the Mittelrhein, no matter how distant from the warming influence of the Rhine, display exquisite freshness and beautiful definition in 2024.

Rheinhessen: Contrasting Pictures of an Intense Year

With 27,499 hectares of Germany’s total 103,687 hectares under vine, Rheinhessen is Germany’s largest wine region. Accordingly, it is rather diverse in its soils and climates. In the north-western corner, both climate and volcanic soils are closer in aspect to the Nahe region than to the rest of Rheinhessen, and thus frost decimated much of Wagner-Stempel’s fruit in Siefersheim and its surrounds. Daniel Wagner said, “If it had not been for the hot August, it would have been like the 1980s,” that decade having been notorious for underripe vintages.

In the cooler Selztal in Rheinessen’s northern interior, it all depended upon where rain fell and whether the Teritiary limestone soils were waterlogged—so the estates of Knewitz, Thörle and Braunewell all fared rather differently. Tobias Knewitz described 2024 as “a marathon run with highs and lows where, in the end, the highs outweighed the lows.” After budburst in April, frost hit only minimally, costing Knewitz around 10% of his yield. Flowering was scattered, followed by a temperature drop, leading to various stages of fruit development on the same vine. Mildew pressure was a challenge for his organic practices. “However, the hot August was a game-changer,” Knewitz said.

Over in Essenheim, Stefan Braunewell explained, “We made a lot of wine, but only little of the good stuff.” This was down to constant rain and waterlogged soils that made vineyard access difficult. Here, even the warm August did not significantly turn things around.

The Thörles were luckier. “Two thousand twenty-four was an extremely challenging year for organic farming, but the hot August rescued the vintage. The weather only turned cold in September,” Christoph Thörle said. Riesling harvest did not commence until October 7, as the Thörles had waited for ripeness.

Johannes Hasselbach of Weingut Gunderloch in Nackenheim showing off his Rieslings from the Roter Hang.

Up in Bingen and Ingelheim, both towns on the river Rhine, frost did no damage. Erik Riffel in Bingen described the 2024 summer as “cooler, with more rain than 2023 and 2022,” which made for more even ripening. “It was the kind of vintage you want to have,” Riffel said about the way the year evolved on the well-drained quartzite slope of the Rochusberg, where his most important sites are located. In Ingelheim, Simone Adams noted that there was a temptation to compare 2024 to the wet year of 2021, but she noted that the dry phases of 2024 were distinctly warmer than in 2021 and that the rainy days were fewer but brought more rain. “The distribution of the rain was not bad at all in 2024,” she said. “There never was any dry stress [in her soils of Tertiary limestone], and if you were on top of canopy management, you were fine.”

As I noted above, the Red Slope—the prominent Permian sandstone escarpment along the Rhine from Nierstein to Nackenheim—was another winner of 2024. Johannes Hasselbach took the 2024 rain during the season as a blessing. “We had rain, a lot of rain, and thus disease pressure, but that was all,” he said. “What we saw in the vineyards was a real vitality of the soils, since we had not seen such lushness in years. We had no frost, no hail, good yields, so for us, 2024 was a lot of work, but the vineyards paid us back.” Christine Huff agreed that the year was “intense,” but she conceded, “Towards the harvest, things got more relaxed. We had cool nights, the grapes stayed stable, and we had no botrytis pressure.” Both estates turned out beautifully taut and brilliant wines.

Further south in the hilly interior of the Wonnegau, on deep Tertiary limestone, Fritz Groebe observed, “Two thousand twenty-four had relatively normal development. We had sufficient water and many cooler nights in summer, with only a few of the tropical nights that remain above 20°C. In sum, we had a long ripening period and sufficient water.” Rains in September gave a little push for ripening after a very hot August, but Groebe also said, “Riesling was interesting. Despite dryness and sunshine, there was no further progress in the must weights. We made several passes in the vineyard, wondering whether we would reach enough concentration.” His neighbor, Philipp Wittmann, echoed this experience and called 2024 “a classically Nordic ripening of fruit.” Wittmann said, “August and September were really good, a wonderful late summer.” Wittmann’s team went through the Riesling sites and made pre-harvests to help concentrate the remaining fruit. The Riesling harvest did not start until late September and lasted well into October. “You needed patience to wait as long as possible,” Wittman added. Felix Keller noted, “Riesling did not get going until October.” The Wonnegau Rieslings are exquisitely pure and taut, almost like tonics. They will shine in the future.

Bella Rutayungwa and Felix Keller presented the stunning Keller collection this year. Bella called 2024 a Geduldspiel, or a game of patience.

Pfalz: Local Luck

The Pfalz is Germany’s second-largest wine region. Vineyards run in a narrow band along the foothills of the Haardt mountains and rarely stretch onto the Rhine plain. Whether gaps in these mountains allow for cooler air streams and frost, and whether rain clouds get stuck there, has a significant local impact on growing conditions.  

The northern Pfalz fared similarly to Rheinhessen’s Wonnegau. There was no frost damage, and the gradual, slow ripening made for beautifully tense and pure Rieslings that are relatively slender for the Pfalz. These wines have tension and brilliance. The Pinot Noirs are also notable.

The Mittelhaardt, the traditional heartland of the Pfalz, was a mixed picture, but that was also due to factors beyond mere weather. This central stretch of the region escaped frost but had some rain during harvest. Monika Schmid at Reichsrat von Buhl summed it up elegantly, saying that 2024 brought “a lot of rain, not always at the right time,” including during harvest. While this meant stringent sorting, she said, “It was good not to have another year of heat.” Steffen Christmann, just a little further south in Gimmeldingen, noted that 2024 was “the first time ever that we went out spraying at night, because the time windows where you could actually spray were so brief. The rain stopped in mid-August, and we could harvest in dry weather.” This illustrates how localized rain showers were during harvest. Again, the 2024 Pfalz Rieslings come with extra verve and wonderfully intense freshness.

The glorious 2024s of Dr. Bürklin-Wolf in Wachenheim. What a way to start the day!

Two of the three great Deidesheim estates—visitor magnets for the region with their cellar doors and restaurants in the heart of picturesque Deidesheim—did not quite live up to the quality potential of their sites in 2024. I was disappointed with the relative mediocrity of the wines at Bassermann-Jordan and von Winning. Staff and management changes at the former and generous yields at the latter can be blamed for this. It is a pity that these estates with their substantial holdings are wasting what could be a lighthouse effect for the Mittelhaardt. On the bright side, the third major Deidesheim estate, Reichsrat von Buhl, seems to be back on track with Winemaker Simone Frigerio having hit his groove. However, Bürklin-Wolf in Wachenheim remains a shining beacon led by the vision and brilliance of Winemaker Nicola Libelli.

Further south, in the more scattered villages of the Südpfalz, Riesling no longer reigns supreme, and Weissburgunder, Chardonnay and Spätburgunder play a bigger role. Here, winemakers spoke of two vintages: one for the Pinots and one for the Rieslings. Some sites sustained frost damage, but all the producers I spoke with noted how exhausting the wet spring and summer were, and how intense the disease pressure was. August, with hot and dry weather, came as a relief. Franz Wehrheim in Birkweiler described how the Pinot varieties and Chardonnay totally rallied and ripened. They were picked in great sanitary conditions in dry weather, and the resulting wines are immensely expressive. Riesling, however, demanded patience. “Even in October, we still went out to cut off fruit to give the remaining bunches that last touch of ripeness,” Wehrheim recalled. In the neighboring village of Siebeldingen, Valentin Rebholz said, “We had to fight for Riesling.”  These conditions led to moderate alcohol levels throughout, but beautiful expression and brilliance.

Newly formed Riesling berries on the Red Slope in late June.

The Verdict on Riesling & Co.

Lovers of classic, cool, highly expressive Rieslings are in for a treat in 2024. The wines are distinctly fresh, svelte and bright, with excellent extract and bright acidity. The best also display immense brilliance. All are beautifully balanced, afforded by the slower ripening and longer vegetative season. Where 2023 Rieslings were pictures of real juiciness, the 2024s are more taut and slender but bring no less joy. The Pinot Noirs are coming on by leaps and bounds. The 2022 vintage was a turning point, as the fruit was so healthy that great quality was widespread. The 2023 growing season once again divided the wheat from the chaff, but Germany’s ever more numerous Pinot Noir specialists delivered immensely elegant wines in a variety of styles. Seek them out.

Chardonnay plays an increasingly important role, as many see it as either more expressive or reflective of soil than its nearest counterpart, Pinot Blanc. Others feel that Chardonnay is more understood in the wine world than Pinot Blanc. By 2023 (the latest figures available), there were 1,087 hectares of Chardonnay in Rheinhessen and 969 hectares in the Pfalz. Back in 1995, there were just 271 hectares of Chardonnay in all of Germany. The fact that so many of the quality estates I visit make Chardonnay shows where the conversation is in Germany. The question is, of course, what Germany can add to the world of Chardonnay. The Germans mostly plant Chardonnay on calcareous soils and on their various limestone formations. The best wines from Pfalz and Rheinhessen, regardless of style, come with bright freshness and a real backbone of acidity—this is what German Chardonnay can add to an already crowded field, especially if the focus is on longevity and soil rather than fruit. Some of these wines are world-class.

I tasted the wines for this report during estate visits in late July 2025.

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