September 30, 2022 - A hot terroir in a hot year and you can taste that.
Peach & petrol, sugared almonds, exotic fruits, barn, vanilla. Slightly bitter finish (from the heat of the vintage?). Good, but not great. Drink up.
February 26, 2022 - Im Duft und Geschmack fruchtig und wuchtig, gut balancierte Säure, passt gut zu kräftigen Gerichten.
December 30, 2021 - Leicht nässender Korken, reifer als erwartet , süffig , gelbe Früchte , alles gut eingebunden
March 30, 2021 - From a half bottle. Bright yellow. Powerful nose with ripe citrus, some stone fruit, mineral, some petroleum notes and a bit of perfume. The palate shows good concentration of ripe citrus, good (but not really high) acidity, mineral, slight bitterness and hints of spice, combined with a long fruity aftertaste. Drinks well now, will keep, 93 pts.
To me, this is a powerful food wine rather than a sipping wine. As dry wines go, the impression is off-dryish rather than bone dry, which I suppose is because of the ripe vintage and the concentration. While I never expect a Künstler Hölle GG to be shy, this is perhaps more in the style of the Hölle Goldkapsel trocken releases. (There wasn't one in 2015, as the grapes were used for an Auslese Goldkapsel instead.) 14% alcohol on the label of a GG always makes me worried, but to me, this wine stays just on the right side of the border. You can feel some of the alcoholic heat on the palate if you look, but it is balanced by the excellent concentration of the citrus fruit. I wanted to revisit this in half bottle format to see how it had developed, and I'm left with a positive impression of this wine's balance and potential for further cellaring.
September 28, 2020 - fruit and acidity do not harmonize as they should. Acidity seems to be too low for future development. Drink now, but do not expect too much.
Addendum: One day later (kept in the fridge without preservation), everything changed. Much better balanced, and very nice fruit, as typical for Künstler. Very enjoyable this time.
August 28, 2020 - muss jetzt weg
August 27, 2020 - From Melchior (18 litres). Incredibly fresh and floral, honeysuckle, extremely expressive, rich and full but lively and fresh, packed with flavour but elegant and playful, concentrated but with nothing out of place. Totally different from the development in the single bottle, although Josef Laufer tells me that the wine is improving again even in normal bottles. At restaurant Zum Krug, Hattenheim, Germany.
October 7, 2019 - Screwcap. Final bottle. To be honest, this has turned into quite a weird wine. The acidity is markedly fresh, almost nervous, but aromatically it is very ripe, vinous and earthy, with little definition in the fruit. It is quite big and weighty (14% ABV), but the power and the acidity do not come across as well integrated. The bitters are clearly present, but they make sense in the context of the wine, but the finish is relatively short. Drink up.
September 11, 2019 - Drunk back to back with the '14, fuller in style fruit dominating but a big wine, can't see this going any great distance not as much structure as the '14, but interesting to taste Kunstlers style, when it hits the mark it is great, this was a little short in what was a hot vintage in the Rhinelands, better in the Mosel.
July 25, 2019 - Screwcap, purchased directly from the producer in December 2016 and stored in perfect conditions. The 2015 vintage was difficult for the warmer terroirs in Germany - the recently tasted Kastanienbusch 2015 from Rebholz is a case in point, and this wine also has the marks of the warm growing season. In August last year it still had a rich tropical fruit expression but this has already faded, and we are left with a big (14% ABV), rich and vinous, earthy Riesling, generous and rounded but with little precision and some estery cherries on the finish. Drink up. It looks like I really misread the 2015 vintage at this estate. In December 2016 I was raving, but only three years later I have little enthusiasm left.