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More than 50 cellar masters under the age of 35 took part in the eighth comparison tasting for young winemakers from the Southern Palatinate in 2018/19. The overall winner was Niko Leonhard from the Richard Rinck winery in Heuchelheim-Klingen. Georg Diehl from the Borell-Diehl winery in Hainfeld came in second, and Mathias Wolf from the Wolf winery in Birkweiler came in third.
The overall winner Niko Leonhard qualified for the final in 2018 via the preliminary tasting. The award for his Silvaner at "Wein am Dom" already caught the attention of the expert audience. He confirmed this with the overall victory and also with the winning wine in the Pinot Blanc category. Like all the other 20 finalists, he had to put five dry wines from his range into a blind tasting, where the expert jury only knew the vintage and grape variety. Niko Leonhard achieved an average of 86.78 out of 100 points with all his wines.
Second-placed Georg Diehl scored especially well with his Chardonnay, with which he also won the corresponding category. Mathias Wolf's strengths were mainly in Riesling. The certificate for the best Pinot Gris and Pinot Noir went to Thomas Hörner from Hochstadt. The brothers Julian and Philipp Hof from Heuchelheim-Klingen took the prize for the best "other red wine" with their Merlot. Christian Brendel from Pleisweiler-Oberhofen won with his Silvaner.
The eight-member jury was made up of nationally known expert tasters, including sommeliers and trade journalists as well as Prof. Ulrich Fischer from the DLR Neustadt and wine inspector Stefan Scherer.
(uka / Photo: Junge Südpfalz e.V.)