Villa Wolf Pinot Noir 2023

The Pfalz is Germany’s warm, sheltered southern strip, tucked behind the Haardt hills, the northern tail of the Vosges, which block the rain and give it a mild, almost Alsatian microclimate on sandstone, limestone, and loam. Pinot Noir has grown here for centuries under the name Spätburgunder. The estate dates to 1756 and its Italianate villa to 1843, but it had faded by the late 20th century until Ernst Loosen, of the famed Dr. Loosen estate on the Mosel, took it over in 1996 to make the dry Pinots he couldn’t in his cooler home region. This is the most delicate wine of the night: high-toned red cherry and cranberry over a savory, herby, mineral edge, light on its feet, with soft tannins and a lift of fresh acidity from a year in used oak.