“1663 is just a number,” Philipp Wittmann tells me, and in some ways it is. But also, 350-plus years of growing fruit in your village is likely to give you some kind of edge. The Dönnhoff family’s farming roots in the Nahe are shallower—a mere 270 years—and it’s true that it was Cornelius’s father, the preternaturally gifted Helmut Dönnhoff, who shot this estate to fame. Cornelius and his friend Philipp are among the world’s best growers of white wine, and their ideas have all the cut, clarity and refreshment factor of their Rieslings.

This fantastic conversation took place when the men heading Weingut Wittmann in Westhofen in the Rheinhessen and Weingut Dönnhoff in the Nahe were visiting their Australian importer, CellarHand—my part-time employer, whose support made this episode possible. We sat down for an hour-long chat in which I grilled them on their respective regions, villages and sites, their approaches to Riesling and ‘the Burgundy varieties’ (Weissburgunder or Pinot Blanc, Grauburgunder or Pinot Gris, plus Pinot Noir and Chardonnay) and their overarching thoughts on German and global fine wine that professes to express its origin.

Though, of course, there is specific and esoteric material here, I have deliberately recorded this with a broad audience in mind. Yes, those with an interest in German wine have the most to gain, but as is always the case with Vininspo!, I fervently believe that these topics provide context for a broader appreciation of wine and the world—a lens through which to view it with more colour, definition and delight. This episode should serve as a conversation starter, or furtherer, in itself.

Speaking of context, though, it’s best to go into this knowing a few things about the estates and their wines. Weingut Wittmann is situated south of Nackehnheim, the Rhine-front Rheinhessen region from which Johannes Hasselbach hails, and east of Oberhausen an der Nahe, home of the Dönnhoff estate. Eleventh-generation winegrower Philipp has vines in a couple of Grosse Lagen (grand-cru designated sites) in Nierstein, the neighbouring village to Nackenheim, but his main vineyard sources are in Westhofen, where you’ll find his Grosse Lagen Aulerde, Kirchspiel, Brunnenhäuschen and Morstein. He has one other grand cru, Höllenbrand, on the similarly limestone-rich soils of Gundersheim.

Philipp is married to the hugely talented Eva Clüsserath, whom he met at the famous Geisenheim University in the Rheingau region on the right bank of the Rhine, north of Nahe/Rheinhessen. Eva is in charge of her family’s Ansgar Clüsserath estate in the village of Trittenheim in the Mosel Valley. We briefly discuss these wines.

Cornelius Dönnhoff’s sites in the Nahe Valley are only about a 45-minute drive west of Philipp, but the soils, climate and landscape are very different. The Nahe River snakes its way up to join the Rhine at Bingen, opposite Rüdesheim in the Rheingau. Cornelius lists his villages/sites as you head up the river, i.e. heading south/southwest from its confluence with the Rhine. We talk about the following vineyards: Höllenpfad in Roxheim; Kahlenberg and Krötenpfuhl in Bad Kreuznach; Dellchen and Kirschheck in Norheim; Klamm and Hermannshöhle in Niederhasuen; Leistenberg and Brücke in Oberhausen; and Kupfergrube and Felsenberg in Schlossböckelheim.

With his Nahe vineyards severely hit by frost in 2024, Cornelius sourced grapes from Philipp and from their friend Nicola Libelli, winemaker at the Dr Bürklin-Wolf estate in the Pfalz region, to the south of Rheinhessen.

We inevitably discuss German wine labels and law, but please don’t be put off! It is articulated well. There is some discussion of the notorious German Wine Law of 1971. This enshrined the practice of predicating (hence the word Prädikat) German quality levels upon the ripeness of the grapes at harvest.

Kabinett is the lightest, followed by Spätlese and Auslese. Crucially, all these wines can be dry or sweet, depending on the winemaker’s choice. (Usually, it boils down to whether he or she decides to stop the fermentation before the yeasts consume all the sugars.) Since Auslese is made with the ripest grapes, the sweetest ones can be fully sweet or luscious, while Kabinett tends to be dry, off-dry or semi-dry, and Spätlese is never sweet enough to be a dessert wine.

The Germans also refer to these wines with residual sweetness as “fruity”, as opposed to dry. Dönnhoff is a master of all these styles, and Cornelius explains the challenge well. Eiswein, Beerenauslese and Trockenbeerenauslese are the ripest Prädikat styles, all lusciously sweet, and the latter two are made with nobly rotten (botrytised) grapes.

Wittmann and Dönnhoff are both members of the VDP (Verband Deutscher Prädikatsweingüter). This is an association of 200-odd winegrowers, whose mission in recent decades has been to address some of the “unfortunate consequences” of that ’71 law. We discuss these in the podcast, along with the VDP’s aim to emphasise origin and quality grape-growing practices as key determinants of quality. The VDP quality pyramid contains four ascending tiers as fruit origin decreases in size and increases in pedigree: Gutswein (estate), Ortswein (village), Erste Lage (Premier Cru) and Grosse Lage (grand cru). A VDP member’s top dry wine from a Grosse Lage is labelled as a Grosses Gewächs or GG.

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