Delicate and subtle, the wines of 2024 are getting compared to cool, classic, old-school-Germany vintages, but always with the note that this vintage is also something entirely its own. 

We're lucky to have any 2024s at all. In late April, frost ravaged much of the Mosel and Nahe, most of the Saar and Ruwer, and many other areas in both Germany and Austria. After such a devastating frost event, growers' heart rates don't settle down for the rest of the season. The threat of hail, an early end to the season, and the many other regular challenges of farming in this part of the world loom even larger when you are behind in the count. And the challenges weren't over: a cool and, in some areas, rainy season chipped away at already diminished crop loads. 

But this is why we drink wine from the margins, wine that you have to be a little crazy to devote your life to making. It brings out a level of skill rarely seen in this business. It's the thrill-seeking side of wine.

Consider this: Where yields were slashed by frost and rain at flowering, the cooler season meant the vine could ripen the reduced crop easily while retaining balance and acidity (as opposed to a hot season, which might have overripened a light crop). Where mildew threatened, the top growers worked tirelessly to thin leaves and sort fruit to ensure only the cleanest grapes were saved. Warm days and cool nights for most of the summer hearkened back to the old days before all we talked about was climate change.

In the fall, rains came again scattered throughout both Austria and Germany, and growers found dry windows to harvest—just as they've done all their lives. A long, drawn-out harvest season meant plenty of time to make good decisions, and in the end, we have fine-boned, acid-driven wines that we believe will age just like 2008, 2013, and other vintages to which growers are comparing this one.

In short, it's exactly the kind of vintage we love drinking, and our only regret is that there are so few wines it may be tempting to avoid cellaring them quite as long as they'll be able to go.