Schäfer-Fröhlich

The Fröhlich family has been cultivating vines since 1800 though Weingut Schäfer-Fröhlich was founded in the 1970s through marriage. In the early 1990s, the extraordinarily talented Tim Fröhlich took over the family estate and made his first vintage in 1995. Rudi Wiest was introduced to Tim by Helmut Dönnhoff who told him there was a young man doing some extraordinary work in the village of Bockenau, an area not known for producing noteworthy wines. Fast forward ten years and Tim Fröhlich was chosen newcomer of the year by The Gault-Millau/German Wine Guide. By 2010, he was selected as winemaker of the year by the same guide; the youngest ever to receive such acclaim. Tim stepped into a virtually unknown estate and shaped it into one of the top Nahe estates in a very short period of time.The outstanding steep vineyard sites are the foundation for unmistakable, authentic wines. In conjunction with these great sites, the recipe for Tim’s success consist of low yields, painstaking vineyard management, a strong adherence to wild yeast fermentation, a focus on minerality, and an almost unnerving perfectionism in the cellar. Oh, and did we mention that he’s rock star handsome? Ridiculous.Weingut Schäfer-Fröhlich totals 21 hectares today, of which 18 hectares is accounted for by Riesling. 82% of the production is dry. Bockenauer Felseneck - Blue Devonian slate, basalt and quartzSchlossbockelheimer Felsenberg - Weathered volcanic porphyry soils and quartzSchlossbockelheimer Kupfergrube - Weathered volcanic porphyry soilsMonzinger Halenberg - Blue slate, gravel and quartzMonzinger Frühlingsplätzchen - Red slate, gravel and quartz80% Riesling, 10% Pinot Blanc, 7% Pinot Noir, 3% other grape varieties.Much of the success was the result of a number of smart acquisitions made by Tim in some of the best vineyards in the region, which nearly doubled the family’s original holdings. He then went on to become a terroir fanatic; developing the best methods to extract the perfect expression of fruit from each of his six Grosses Gewachs classified vineyards. Of considerable note are the blue slate, loess (fine silty sediment) and loam (sand, silt, clay blend) soils of the Felseneck vineyard, considered one of Tim’s most prized holdings, and a virtually unknown location before he started working with it. Schäfer- Fröhlich is making Rieslings as great, or better than, (dare we say it?) any producers in the Nahe. These are some of the most impressive and exciting white wines being crafted anywhere today.Stephan Reinhardt writes: "As for his Rieslings, even the dry village/terroir wines are gorgeous here and have more expression than many German GG Rieslings. The Felseneck GG is probably one of the finest dry Rieslings produced in Germany so far. I can hardly think of more precision, finesse and elegance in dry Nahe Rieslings. More than this, the sweet predicate wines from this steep, dark slate site are also great wines that deserve all your attention. More and more, Tim's Felseneck is becoming a glorious single-vineyard site that offers the finest Nahe Rieslings along with the Hermannshöhle and the Halenberg, the latter of which is always more compact and powerful but less filigreed compared to the other two aristocrats."  "The stunning thing about Tim Fröhlich's 2018s is that many of them taste as if they were from a cooler vintage, especially those from Bockenau's slate soils. Cooler sites like the Felseneck were surely helpful, but more than anything else, the correct canopy management becomes crucial in those hot years like 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018 and also 2019. After good rainfalls in spring, 2018 was characterized by a terribly hot and dry summer and, like 2017, by a pretty early harvest. The grapes were perfectly ripe and healthy in autumn, which enabled team Fröhlich to handcraft another series of exceptional wines. In particular, I fell in love with the 2018 estate Riesling and the Bockenauer village Riesling Vulkangestein. The Grosses Gewächs wines are powerful and rich but precise and terroir-driven, but they do not negate the vintage. The flavors represent ripe and intense fruit, and the body is full, the finish powerful. The feinherb Riesling crus are also remarkably fine in 2018 and so are the predicate wines that I have tasted so far." - Stephen Reinhardt