Weingut Wittmann

Rheinhessen's reputation for serious wine was rebuilt over two decades, and Weingut Wittmann is one of the handful of estates responsible for building it. Philipp Wittmann completed the conversion to Demeter certified biodynamic farming after a foundation of Naturland certified organic practice that his family had maintained since 1990 — a farming record that predates the premium Rheinhessen wine renaissance by several years.

The estate's Westhofen vineyards — particularly the Kirchspiel and Aulerde Grosse Lagen — produce Riesling of a weight and mineral complexity that the Mosel's slate soils express differently. The limestone and loess soils of Westhofen give the wines a broader, more textured character, and the biodynamic farming produces the kind of soil vitality that translates, vintage by vintage, into wines that age well beyond what the region's commercial reputation would suggest.

The Kirchspiel Grosses Gewächs Riesling has drawn 98 points from James Suckling, and the full range of single-vineyard Grosses Gewächs bottlings has earned the estate a following among German wine specialists that is proportionally large given the production volume.

Wittmann is one of those estates where the farming philosophy and the quality of the final wines are so obviously connected that explaining one explains the other.