Pinot Prestige Brut Nature – 2018

Pinot Prestige Brut Nature by Griesel Sekt with smoke and spice

The 2018 Pinot Prestige Brut Nature by Griesel Sekt is a white-pressed vintage sparkling wine made from pure Pinot Noir, bottled in July 2019 and disgorged only in May 2022. Bottled with zero dosage, it was released in a limited edition of 4,091 bottles.

Pinot Prestige Brut Nature 2018 is the Blanc de Noirs from Griesel Sekt, the premier sparkling wine house of the Bergstraße region, hand-harvested in September 2018. Its name refers solely to the Pinot, and behind it stands only Pinot Noir, with no other variety in the blend.

Pear chutney, rosemary, and a streak of smoke

The bouquet opens with ripe red apple and dark pear chutney. Rosemary and juniper emerge in between, with warm pretzel pastry and smoked bacon lingering in the background.

On the palate, the perlage works with intensity, filling the mouth. The spice persists, and the drive from 7.2 grams of acidity per liter keeps the sparkling wine upright. It is complex in structure and juicy until the very last sip, and at the end remains that vibrant tension that makes it refreshing rather than heavy.

Braised pork cheek and rabbit terrine are its natural habitat, as is pan-seared zander. Because it lacks any cushion of sweetness, it holds its own against mustard, capers, and pickled vegetables, where milder sparkling wines would fail.

Barren slope and a cool breeze from the Odenwald

The vines grow in soil where the granite has disintegrated into grit and holds almost no water, forcing the roots to go deep. The cool breeze from the nearby Odenwald keeps their acidity vibrant.

Pressing is done so gently that only about half of the juice leaves the berries. What follows would introduce tannins and wax, resulting in a coarser perlage. Fermentation occurs spontaneously, followed by malolactic fermentation, which converts the sharp malic acid into milder lactic acid.

For aging, Griesel Sekt distributes the base wines among forty percent stainless steel, just over a third in tonneaux, and a quarter in barriques. The wine was bottled in July 2019, skipping any filtration or fining.

Quarter-turn by quarter-turn into the neck

The tirage triggers a second fermentation in the bottle, and whatever the yeast leaves behind must eventually be removed without the sparkling wine losing its pressure.

To achieve this, the bottles move to the riddling rack, where they receive a quarter-turn day by day while being tilted more steeply head-down, until the sediment sits as a compact plug in the neck. By then, it has spent thirty-four months on the fine lees, and you never see the sediment.

During disgorgement in May 2022, the bottle neck is frozen in a cold bath, the crown cap is removed, and the internal pressure shoots the ice plug out. Instead of a dosage, nothing was added afterward, not even sulfur. Consequently, there is nothing in the glass that does not originate from grape and time.

How the same concept turns out a year later is demonstrated by the 2019 Pinot Noir Prestige, while the Blanc de Noirs from the Tradition line manages with a significantly shorter period on the lees. The entire selection of sparkling wine is right there on the shelf.