Enderle & Moll - Pinot Noir 'Liaison' 2021

This estate is really just two guys, a tiny cellar, a few hectares of old vines and a hell of a lot of buzz – even Jancis Robinson has called them “cult.” What you can say with certainty is that Florian Moll, along with his partner Géraldine, Manfred Enderle and Frenchman Maxence Lecat, fly in the face of just about every conventional estate in Baden. Farming some of the oldest vines in Baden the team crafts complex, earthy and superbly detailed Pinot Noirs that will completely redefine how you view German reds, to say nothing of their stunningly textural yet buoyant and defined skin-contact white wines. They are one of the first German red wine producers to emphasize lightness, transparency, finesse. They are the benchmark producer for natural, Burgundy-esque German Pinot Noir, period, end. The white wines, though a small part of their production, are revelations in skin-contact whites; transparent and energetic. Farming is organic/biodynamic, no additives, no filters, minimal sulfur.

Liaison, something like Enderle & Moll’s “1er Cru” bottling, from vines 60 years old and older (what a country due west might call Vieilles-Vignes) planted on the two predominant soil types down here in Baden: colored sandstone and shell limestone. A “Liaison” of soil types if you will. It is always one of the most compelling Pinots out there, an absurd value that easily out-classes wines that are twice the price. Ruby and vibrant in the glass – this is unmistakably PURE Pinot. On the palate the wine is very fine and delineated, deeply soil driven. The tannins are woven and very much in focus, fruit is more purple and blue than that of Basis’s pure red and the wine is very moreish.

Producer: Enderle & Moll

Country: Germany

Region: Baden

Varietal: Pinot Noir

Appellation: Baden

Vintage: 2021