After a summer of record-breaking heat with barely a drop of rainfall, Germany’s 2022 vintage initially looked to be a return to the bold, concentrated wines of 2018, 2019 or 2020. But having tasted through nearly 400 wines from the 2022 vintage at the VDP’s (Verband Deutscher Prädikatsweingüter’s) Grosses Gewächs (GG), or Grand Cru, preview in late August, it’s clear that 2022 is an entirely different animal. 

2022 is, in fact, a topsy-turvy year for German wines, which — despite the profound heat — are cool, slender and crisp in fruit. You’ll find that quality is inconsistent across the vintage, which makes it a difficult one to read, let alone forecast — but rest assured, for Germany’s best producers, 2022 will be a year of thrilling freshness and charm.

The headlines

• 2022 was a hot, drought-prone year. But overwhelmingly, the wines taste as if they came from a much cooler vintage.  
• For devotees of classic German wines, 2022 and its natural companion vintage, 2021 (a vintage that was cold and wet), are thrilling flashbacks to German wines of the 1980s — delicate, fresh-fruited and lean. 
• Compared to the searing, acid-driven 2021s, the 2022s seem more fragrant and fruit-driven. These are spry wines with balanced acidity and refreshingly lower alcohol levels. They’re also remarkably rewarding in youth. 
• Most 2022 reds, particularly oak-aged examples of Pinot Noir (known as Spätburgunder in Germany), won’t hit the market until 2024. But white Pinot varieties like Weissburgunder (Pinot Blanc) and Grauburgunder (Pinot Gris) are already exceeding expectations in 2022, so it’s possible that Spätburgunder may end up headlining this vintage.
• German wine hangs its hat on benchmark Riesling producers from the Mosel and Rheingau. But to really understand the cutting edge of German wine, pay attention to lesser-known regions like Franken, Nahe and the Ahr, as well as far less appreciated varieties like Silvaner and Spätburgunder. These wines have been quietly and consistently overdelivering in recent hotter vintages (not just in 2022). 
  

2022 was hot, but more specifically defined by drought

• 2022 was a uniformly hot summer in Germany shaped not by the severity of heat spikes but a painfully prolonged drought. Across the country, vines shut down due to severe hydric stress instead of focusing their energy on grape ripening. 
• After a summer of uneven ripening, a sudden September surge of rain in most regions flushed grapes full of water, diluting flavors and knocking sugar and acidity levels further off balance.
• After the rain subsided, nimble producers who were able to protect their grapes through the humidity coaxed out brightly concentrated wines from a late harvest that extended well into October and early November.

The wines at a glance

• Success in 2022 hinged entirely on the skill and experience of quality growers and the myriad, even minute, decisions they made such as whether to drop fruit when climatic conditions became perilous, whether to harvest early or whether to just wait nervously.
• This vintage definitely resulted in some unripe, thinly concentrated wines, and many winegrowers say there’s a distinct bitterness in wines that were particularly affected by the drought. 
• Overwhelmingly, however, most of Germany’s top producers managed to transform their 2022 grapes into remarkably vibrant, crisp wines. They’re lower in alcohol than previous vintages and a bit softer in acidity, too, yet refreshingly finessed in style. This presents an interesting contrast to 2021, which was legitimately cold and rainy, yielding more bracing, acid and mineral-driven wines. 
• Tasted side by side, 2021 and 2022 are flashbacks to a time when German wines were much more finely etched, delicate in texture and luminous in fruit quality. These aren’t the blockbuster wines of vintages like 2018. But if finesse and delicacy is what you’ve been missing from contemporary German wines, don’t skip these vintages.

Regional notes and winners

Old-vine Mosel and the Saar

• As severe water deficits and temperatures above 100°F persisted in the Mosel, young vines suffered badly. But the region’s crown jewels — those ancient, often ungrafted vines with extensive root systems  — thrived thanks to their ability to access the region’s deep, subterranean water tables. 

• GG bottlings from vineyards like Van Volxem’s Gottesfuss and Heymann-Löwenstein’s Rottgen showed a rippling concentration of fruit and extract in 2022 that stood out from the crowd. Wines from the cooler reaches of the Saar, too, particularly from producers like Zilliken, Peter Lauer, Reichsgraf von Kesselstatt and Von Hövel, are stunningly perfumed and filigreed in 2022. 

Nahe

• Even the most ardent of German wine lovers are often only passingly familiar with the wines of the Nahe. While too often overlooked, it’s a region that over-delivered in this heterogeneous vintage. 

• Look to the region’s benchmark producers this year for the greatest level of consistency. Rieslings from Dönnhoff, Emrich-Schönleber or Schäfer-Fröhlich show a searing fruit intensity in 2022 combined with a beguiling freshness that seems to tease out the region’s distinctly smoky, salt-struck qualities.
  

Varietal notes and winners 

Silvaner

• No grape has achieved so much greatness to so little fanfare as Franken’s humble Silvaner. Forever in the shadow of Riesling, Silvaner has become the cool kid of the German wine scene today, and 2022 is a smashing vintage for those looking to get involved. Slender in profile and incandescent in fruit, these are the kind of dry, invigorating whites that are easy to love. Producers like Hans Wirsching, Am Stein, Max Müller or Rainer Sauer are consistent standouts.

Pinot Noir (Spätburgunder)

• Most benchmark examples of Germany’s 2022 reds won’t hit the market until next year. But producers throughout Baden, Nahe, Pfalz and the Ahr are buzzing about what a fantastic year 2022 will be for Spätburgunder. Even entry-level Pinots from producers like Meyer-Näkel in the Ahr show incredible promise. Their 2022 Blauschiefer Spätburgunder, previewed at the winery in late August, was already packed with a purity of rich, ripe black fruit flavors tempered by cooling edges of menthol and steel. 
• As more 2022s come to market, look to Germany’s benchmark Spätburgunder producers – Bernhard Huber and Franz Keller in Baden, Friedrich Becker and Rebholz in the Pfalz or Rudolf Fürst in Franken. These producers have elevated German Pinot Noir to a level comparable to that of Burgundy with sleek but penetrating, often profoundly perfumed wines. 

Pinot Blanc (Weissburgunder)

• Speaking of Burgunders, Weissburgunder rarely gets the attention that Riesling or Chardonnay receives. But in Germany – where more Weissburgunder is planted than anywhere else in the world – it’s Weissburgunder, not Chardonnay, that’s delivering the most luminous, ageworthy expressions of oaked whites. For anyone who’s ever dismissed Pinot Blanc, 2022 Weissburgunder from producers in the Pfalz like Rebholz, Philipp Kuhn, Pfeffingen and others are particularly eye-opening.
  

Where to invest

• Blue-chip German wines are no longer the steals they were even a decade or two ago, particularly if you’re considering the alpha echelon — producers like Klaus Peter Keller, Egon Müller, Willi Schaefer and others.

• But overwhelmingly, German Riesling, Silvaner and Spätburgunder epitomize the ephemerality of perfume and freshness of fruit that have gone virtually extinct elsewhere in the wine world. And because the German fine wine market is far less frenzied compared to Bordeaux or Burgundy, there’s still considerable value to be found.

• Even basic wines from cult producers like Willi Schaefer or Joh. Jos. Prüm are still remarkably accessible in price and distribution. And in the $50-70 range that so much village-level Burgundy goes for these days, you’ll find plenty of GG or similarly top-tier wines from many different German regions that outperform their prices. 
  
  • Mosel: Collector favorites that are still remarkably affordable include producers like Fritz Haag, Maximin Grünhaus, Van Volxem or Peter Lauer. 
    
  • Rheingau: Producers like Peter Jakob Kühn, Künstler, J.B. Becker, Georg Breuer and Schloss Johannisberg rarely disappoint. 
  • Pfalz:  Consider wines from Bassermann-Jordan, Bürklin-Wolf, Von Buhl or Müller-Catoir.
  • Rheinhessen: Wittmann, Battenfeld Spanier, Kühling-Gillot or Dreissigacker are consistently outstanding.
  • Nahe: Dönnhoff, Emrich-Schönleber, Kruger-Rumpf or Schäfer-Fröhlich are all flagship producers. 
  • Franken: Consider Hans Wirsching or Rudolf Fürst.

• None of these producers come cheap, but they’re all producers savvy collectors are turning to as Burgundy prices continue to soar ridiculously out of reach. 
  

They’re delicious now, but will they age well?

• 2022 isn’t a vintage of show ponies packed with over-the-top fruit, extract and alcohol. But they’re also not those searing, nervous wines that require a long maturation in the cellar to enjoy.

• Thus far, 2022 looks like a vintage that will drink well much earlier than 2021 or the more muscular, densely extracted vintages like 2018 or 2019. 2022s are the kind of wines that are structured enough to improve in the cellar, but they’re delightfully charming and welcoming when young, too. 

• Quality German wines, both dry and sweet in format, are generally well-suited for cellaring even in inconsistent vintages. Among Germany’s best producers, even 2003, a vintage that was astonishingly low in acidity and even blowsy for many, yielded some spectacularly ageworthy wines. Similarly, cooler years like 2007 or 2012 were said to be ill-suited for long cellaring, but more than two decades later, many still offer a slender, evanescent appeal.
• Thus far, wines from Germany’s top-tier producers in 2022 are showing a firm, fresh acidity that should enhance these delicate wines well over time. They’re the kind of wines that will age with grace, not power, gaining more subtle complexities and textural definition with age.