German Wine between $10 and $25

Drachenstein, that’s where Dragonstone comes from. This wine is sportin’ some torque. It has the crazy grip of the vintage, the thickness of fruit and spearmint, plus the kirsch of the site. A really happy wine to drink now, though if past is prologue you can age it for ten years and have a beauty on your hands.

They are a small estate of 5.8 hectares. Extraordinarily aromatic, vigorous wines from a vintner who grows more commanding each vintage. They have a remarkable reconciliation of weight, solidity and buoyancy. They tend to run stony, as is the Rheingau type—when it’s true! And they are fastidiously specific in their site characteristics. The dry wines are better than most! Still, almost none of Johannes’ wines taste “sweet.� They have the coiled power of a tightly closed fist. They are intensely fragrant, as though they wished to convince you of something. They are like Wachau wines; they crave oxygen, and they do show their best ice cold.