Moritz Kissinger new friends from the cold, vast Rheinhessen
{ Kissinger's wines offer a revelatory new perspective on the Rheinhessen's limestone, with influences from Champagne and the Jura, Burgundy and beyond. }
So much of what we wrote from our last Kissinger offer still feels so wildly poignant that maybe we don't have to do that much writing? Obviously the three-pack is a selection of new releases from the *ELEKTRIK* 2021 vintage - including the first time we have been allocated any Sauvignon Blanc or Weissburgunder.
We wanted to end year with some fireworks.
Yet, as I've written before, part of me wants to just write "IYKYK" because Moritz Kissinger has only released a handful of vintages and already they have become something of a phenomenon in Germany.
The Chardonnay is one of the impossible-to-find, ultra-dork German collectibles - and given the limited quantities, this is basically the only place you will find it.
I will say the amount of emails and IG DMs I've gotten about Moritz's wines is unprecedented, perhaps only surpassed by inquiries for Keller, which is funny because Keller's enthusiastic reception of Kissinger's wines has for sure helped feed the fire in Germany and beyond. (The IG post above is from Keller where he wrote, "Just wow! I'm not sure which of the two wines on the table I enjoy more! Very, very well done Moritz!")
But please understand, even two or three years into this, these are very hard wines to contextualize; there is a lot going on here. We'll do our best to be both complete and concise, to try and explain the hype, the magic and the beauty of Moritz Kissinger's wines.
I suppose what makes these wines so revelatory is the style, which, when you approach them through the lens of many Rheinhessen wines (most of which are grandiose yet crystalline dry Rieslings), they feel shocking, discombobulating, disorienting. Kissinger's wines are more relaxed, wider. They use their textural qualities in an unapologetic way; they have an approachable honesty that isn't rustic exactly, but it is maybe jarring - the degree of clarity, the forthrightness.
And then, with the second sip you approach the wines more as Chardonnay or Pinot Blanc or as Sauvignon Blanc, grown on limestone, without thinking about the cultural baggage of the Rheinhessen, or of Germany at large.
And then the wines make perfect fucking sense. These wines are absolutely what they should be.
I've had this thought on multiple occasions tasting Mortiz's wines: "How did no one make wines like this before?"
They feel simultaneously so original and absolutely obvious and perfect - like they've always been around... or should have been. They feel like cousins of iconic French regions and wines - Champagne, Jura, Burgundy - authentically filtered through the soil of the Rheinhessen, by a young winemaker who has grown up on this soil.
Moritz Kissinger as a person has a warmth and an openness that, like his wines, feels both incredibly refreshing and also somehow familiar - and not in a chummy or cheesy way. It's crazy - these are wines we've introduced through Source Material - yet already I've had just so many amazing tastings with Mortiz, normally involving numerous friends of his, other young winemakers (and their wines) and a parade of wines from around the world - unicorns and trophies, oddballs and curiosities, everything and the kitchen sink. These tastings end up feeling more like events... and then maybe parties.
Suffice it to say Mortiz has an incredible energy, a curiosity, a passion and sociability that maybe puts him at the center (or very close to it) of something that really feels like a movement of some young growers in the Rheinhessen.
It is such a beautiful, absolutely magical moment in German wine; it is a renaissance and we're in the very heart of it all.
While Moritz is a fourth-generation winemaker, he is only the second generation in his family to bottle his own wines; his father began before him in 1986. The family estate is about 14 hectares total, though Moritz only a small amount of this goes toward his own production. While this is growing, for the moment these are very rare bottles of wine. The estate is located in Uelversheim, a village located in the eastern part of central Rheinhessen.
You can define it by where it is not: Uelversheim is south and slightly west of the Roter Hang and the famous village of Nierstein. Uelversheim is north and slightly east of Westhofen and the sites made famous by Keller in the south.
It is exactly between these two famous landmarks.
Yet, if at the moment Uelversheim is defined by where it is not, there is a very good chance that in the next decade this place will be well known for what Moritz Kissinger is doing here.
Sign Up
