Johannes's gutedel has an easy grace and approachability while having a mineral core and fine texture which reveal its origins on the prized limestone ridge known as the Weiler Schlipf. Understanding the region and the man himself are so key to unlocking the magic behind these wines so we thought we'd fill you in.
Johannes Schneider
When he's not being photographed in the guise of a Mercury Music Prize-nominated dubstep producer, fourth-generation winemaker Johannes Schneider holds the reins at Weingut Claus Schneider (Claus being Johannes's father) in Baden. Farming the southernmost vineyard in Germany, the Weiler Schlipf, where unrivalled sun hours combine with the sort of clay-limestone soil which provides the very best expression for pinot noir and gutedel, Schneider goes down as one of our all-time best discoveries.
In the past Robin has given tastings of Johannes's top pinot, and a "very good" Vosne-Romanée that costs twice the price, at a Swiggers' dinner and most preferred the Schneider, thinking it was the Vosne. But that quality is absolutely consistent throughout the range, and certainly extends to his delicious limestone terroir whites. The quality they deliver is better than anything else from southern Germany that the Swig team has tried.
The Weiler Schlipf
Classified in 1875 and considered the best vineyard site in Markgräflerland on the southern tip of Baden, the Weiler Schlipf (pictured below, looking towards Basel over the Swiss border) is the prized limestone ridge from which the Schneider family make some of the most finely chiselled wines imaginable. Ideal for growing pinot noir, but also producing gutedel/chasselas whites of a Chablissienne finesse, the soil differs from Burgundy only in the density of the clay. The pinots produced from the Weiler Schlipf could be likened to those of Gevrey (it's very apt that Johannes has worked there with the esteemed Domaine Rossignol-Trapet), while the whites give us a sense of the combined fruit and minerality profile of fine Chablis
