Wasenhaus is one of the most sought-after producers in Germany today. If you own their wines, be happy. If you don't, you know your targets.

Christoph Wolber and Alexander Götze benefit from having their wines sold out, but they hope that at least a few wine hedonists will have the patience to keep them in the cellar for a couple of years, because ‘the wine will pay off,’ as Alexander says.

Friends are holding back a few hundred bottles for late release in a couple of years. At least then it should open the eyes of Wasenhaus hunters.

The guys met in Burgundy when they were both interning at domaines such as Leflaive, Pierre Morey, Comte des Armand and Domaine de Montille. They had the idea to produce ‘artisanal, hand-crafted, non-interventionist, low-tech wines,’ as Christoph calls them.

The wines are truly low-tech. Basket press, whole bunch fermentation in wooden cuvées and ageing on the lees for two winters in Burgundy barrels. The wines are then aged for another couple of months in stainless steel to bring back their precision and freshness. The wines are bottled without pump-over, fine cleaning or filtration and with only a very moderate dose of SO2.

Like the wines of Tomislav Markovic or Bernard Hubert, the pinot noirs from Wasenhaus display an extraordinary lightness and clarity; a finesse that embarrasses almost all other German pinot noirs.

Wasenhaus wines are clean, dry, fresh and authentic, with ripe and concentrated fruit flavours, mineral finesse and vigour, and a very digestible finish. The number of wines produced is quite small.

Wasenhaus