Julia Bertram

Ahr | Dernau

For more than a century, Julia Bertram’s family has grown and made wine in the tiny, marginal Ahr Valley. When Julia took over the estate in 2017, she directed her focus first toward the cherished old family sites, where she organically farms a total of 6.8 hectares of precipitous slopes all planted to Spätburgunder (pinot noir, in German). “What makes our wines unique,” Julia explains, “is the combination of slate and Spätburgunder in such a northerly region.” Across the board, Julia’s wines impress with their slender elegance, their arresting coolness and clarity, and above all a precisely mapped sense of place.

Julia Bertram 2016 Forstberg Spätburgunder

The Forstberg is around the corner from the Rosenthal and Julia considers it an Erste Lage site. She has 42-year-old vines here in one parcel, planted by her grandfather to an old clone from the Ahr Valley called “stuber.” The soils are slate with sandstone and loam, and the profile is “darker” than the other wines in her range. Cassis, brown spice, a touch of chocolate are present with a pallet of sweet fruit, though, like all of Julia’s wines, it is technically completely dry. It has finesse and tension between ripeness and structure. It was fermented in 100% new, German oak (300L, 500L barrels) and bottled, like all the wines, unfiltered.

  • 2016
  • Pinot Noir
  • QbA
  • Germany
  • Ahr
  • Organic
  • Forstberg
  • Slate with sandstone and loam
  • 16 months barrique, 3 months stainless
  • Barrique
  • 750 ml

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