Schloss Johannisberg Riesling Kabinett Rotlack 2024 is a vibrant and finely balanced Kabinett Riesling, showcasing the elegance of the Rheingau style. Aromas of summer flowers lead into bright flavours of pomegranate, red berries and blood orange, lifted by lively citrus freshness and wet-stone minerality. Light yet expressive, it combines juicy sweetness with crystalline acidity, finishing long, fresh and precise. Made from organically grown grapes, it is already charming but has the structure to develop beautifully with time.

James Suckling | JS 95
Published: Jul 21, 2025

This wine sits on the knife edge of light- to medium-bodied, but what a fascinating edge that is! A wealth of summer-flower aromas leads you into an abundance of pomegranate, red-berry and blood-orange flavors, the wet stone minerality energizing all of this. Super-vibrant finish with so much citrusy freshness. From organically grown grapes with Fair'n Green certification. Drink or hold.

The Wine Advocate | RP 92+
Published: Nov 6, 2025
Drink: 2030-2050

The 2024 Schloss Johannisberg Rotlack Riesling Kabinett shows a delicate and stony bouquet with fragrant bright fruit and floral aromas intertwined with lemongrass nuances. Bottled in early March, this is a juicy, savory, saline, fresh and racy Kabinett with lush and quite sweet fruit (26.2 grams per liter of residual sugar) yet also crystalline and vibrantly fresh acidity that is sharp as a knife but not aggressive. It's just Riesling. 10% stated alcohol. Natural cork. Tasted at the domaine in August 2025.

In challenging vintages, it is often the classic Prädikat wines that are most successful at Schloss Johannisberg. In 2024, these are the Spätlese Grünlack and the two Kabinett Rieslings Rotlack and Orangelack, the latter of which is sold exclusively through Place de Bordeaux. This trio displays a clear, bright, elegant, refined and natural style (insofar as one can speak of naturalness with deliberately halted fermentation), which does not seem forced in the slightest but rather convivial and extremely entertaining. The estate wines Gelblack (dry and semi-dry) are anything but that. Enrichment (chaptalization) does them no good; on the contrary, these wines, which are supposed to be suitable for all occasions, just talk loudly and have nothing to say, as if they were politicians.

The Schloss Johannisberger 2024 Bronzelack, 2023 Silberlack (the Grosses Gewächs) and 2022 Goldlack also fail to make a real impression. They seem contrived, intellectual and hardly sensual. Yet the Silberlack can be really exciting, as a 10-year vertical at the Robert Weil winery in Kiedrich showed in later August. Here, the 2021, 2019, 2017 and 2014 vintages were convincing. Sure, the young vintages I mentioned will refine over the years, but will they convince? You have to buy them today.

Schloss-johannisberg.de

Perfectly balanced! Here the sweetness, acidity and the varietal character of the Riesling go hand in hand.