Okay, other than the Maximin Grunhauser flown in for a special tasting at the German Wine Society meeting, this is the first 2001 riesling that I tried. I got no less than 9 cases delivered yesterday and I picked up 2, so I went from 0 to 11 cases in one day!

Thought I would try this first since I bought 10+ cases of Christoffel and this has been the estate that I decided to go gung ho on. Why? I love Christoffel's to begin with and thought that they were an underrated estate. No longer - Terry Theise has given every wine in the lineup except for this one at least one "+". Bill Mayer thinks this is the greatest collection in Germany. In Terry's catalog he says that he loves this wine and thought that he likes it a "smid-d-g-e-o-n" less than the Erdener Treppchen Kabinett. Han's Leo (the owner who has since retired) thinks that that is a mistake saying that Urzig takes more time.

The wine is a pale wheat color with classis Mosel nose. Clean, clear, with hints of acid and sweatness swirling around the top of the glass. The flavors deepen after 1/2 hour in the glass. The light tart apple favor becomes more pronounced and exciting. Terry uses "high-bred" and "racy" in his brief description. I definitely agree with both. Very enjoyable now, but it should become more complex as time goes on. Recommended drinking range is 8-20 years.

I'm not sure that I can objectively rate this wine. Mosel's are my favorite wines and I find myself drinking only rieslings 4 times a week (from the same bottle).

I'm also sure that there will be other rieslings that will be a better fit for others. At the $19-22 range, this is not an inexpensive Kabinett. The spatlese is sold for only a couple dollars more and the auslese (no star) a few dollars more than the spatlese. There are a lot of spatlese under $20 that are well thought of. And the Meulenhof Erdener Treppchen Auslese #13 and the Merkelbach Urziger Wurzgarten Auslese #16 are both being sold for around $20 and both are highly thought of by Bill Mayer (a local distributor).

GATC,
Nice notes.
It is good to see people being more objective on their views on particular and styles. I will endevour to find this wine.

2nd day, the wine is bigger and more intense. Acting more like a spatlese, and could even pass for an auslese. I have to remember that it has been traveling from Germany to the retailer, then from there to my home. It only had one day of rest.

I opened it last night and all I did was recork it and put it in the frig. I normally put the wine into smaller bottles and then put it in the frig, but I thought I would try this method.

The acid is less noticeable and so it the tartness. Hints of strawberries starting to appear. Tasting sweeter.

FYI -

Brown Derby has the JJ Christoffel Urziger Wurzgarten Spatlese and Auslese in stock now. The Spatlese is $25.99 and the Auslese is $27.99 (9 in stock according to the site).

They ship almost everywhere too.

Brown Derby

I found this wine for $32 NZD ($16 USD) so I bought a case. It is definately quite "zingy" on the palate but the fruit seems to abalnce it particularly on the back palate.

GATC,
Thanks again for the "heads up".

STW, great tip on the spatlese and auslese. These would not last more than 1 day on the west coast. Since I have 32 of the spatlese and 41 of the auslese, I'll let others take a crack at this first. But if it is still there in a week, I'm going for it. I actually filled out the order form, put in my card number and almost hit okay, but thought others should get a crack at it first. The price is on the high side, but by avoiding sales tax (CA has the highest in the nation and it may go up to 9.5% soon), and with low shipping, it is attractive to me. Actually, I don't know of anyone on the west coast who has any left since most were bought as futures and the remaing gobbled up.

Jeremy, when you say zingy, are you talking about the acidity? I've never found spriz in Christoffels like I have on Prums (some people accuse Prum of intentionally putting in CO2).

Yes acidic.

Many German producers add a small amount of CO'2 to keep the wine fresh, but it isn't added to the wine it is used to seal, much like Nitrogen is used. I'm not sure if JJ Prum does this or not but I know FWG does and it hasn't affected his wines in any detrimental manner.

STW, thanks for the lead and I hope people had a chance to take advantage of it. I waited a week like I said, but got an email this morning that today is Super Tuesday where everything in stock is 15% off for internet orders. I jumped on it and it said 7 left for the auslese and 12 left for the spatlese. I placed the order for all and it changed the order to 7 each and it processed. I called them to ask what happened (I suspected that someone bought 5 spatlese while I was online). He said that people had been asking about them and he thought they were all gone. I said the transaction went through. He said that it goes through their website program, but they run it manually afterwards and update the website 2/day. He asked for my number and called back later to confirm that they were all gone and that my internet transaction will not be run manually.

I hope someone here got these.