Part 3 of 3. Visits on September 25 and 26.
J.U.H.A. STRUB
There’s major construction going on at Strub. Margit explains that it all started with a new roof. After that it sounds like an episode of “This Old Schloss.” Each step revealed more required work, and of course it’s over budget and pushing up against deadlines for completion. They’ve had to cancel a trip to Rome due to the construction. And it’s rare that the Strubs can take a real vacation. One of the unglamorous things about the business is that they must live by the schedule of the vines and wines. There is a light at the end of the tunnel. The Strubs oldest son has an interest in the winery, so when he gets a few years older he will be able to look after things. Margit has plans for that time!
We talk a little about some of the wines we’ve had from Strub over the years, and Margit says that to drink their wine they have to go to the USA. Virtually every bottle is sold through, and it’s a rare occasion when Margit gets to sample anything from their cellars. In fact there’s only a few bottles around for our tasting, but she manages to wrangle up a fine selection. This is the one estate where we can taste pretty much everything in the USA. The exception is the 2002 vintage, since most of the wines were not bottled until early summer. So it’s fortuitous that we have chosen this year to visit.
2002 Niersteiner Riesling Kabinett
This is the liter bottling. It’s consistently high quality, barely off dry and fruity. The 2002 version is no exception, though this year brings an intriguing saltiness to the picture. The blend is also different, with Oelberg replacing the usual Brückchen in the mix. Apples and lemons play in a crisp matrix. Cheap+good=QPR.
2002 Niersteiner Brückchen Riesling Kabinett
This is the one of a few addresses where we get to taste more than a single 2002 Kabinett. It’s not that Strub has poor sites that do not give ripe grapes (heavens no!), but even with Spätlese quality must the clarity, focus and off dry profiles of these wines make them consistent with a Kabinett designation. This Brückchen is no exception, with the normal chalky profile and Champagne-like aromas of flowers, apples and lemons. There’s a touch of herbs on the finish and a very chalky mouthfeel. I have always like Brückchen, and I like this version.
2002 Niersteiner Hipping Riesling Kabinett
Now we move to the famed Roter Hang, and its red soils. The change brings more depth and richness, as well as peachy fruit to replace the apples. There’s also something approaching smoky in the wine, but not the smoke of age, it’s a smell of the soil as we find out later in the day.
2002 Niersteiner Orbel Riesling Kabinett
This goes more to red grapefruit and spice. The finish is the longest so far, with almost a cinnamon edge. This would be fabulous with a Thai red curry.
2002 Niersteiner Pettenthal Riesling Kabinett
This is perennially my favorite of the red slope wines. 2002 is again tops for me. The red fruit and spice of the Orbel is there, along with an aroma that I at first have trouble identifying. I spend a few minutes with the wine, and eventually it comes to me. The wine smells just a little like unlit pipe tobacco. It’s an aroma I’ve always liked, and the association makes me like the wine even more. The flavors back up the nose well, and this is also the raciest of all the kabinetten.
While we’re sampling the first few wines, Margit shows us some soil samples from the vineyards. The red slope soils are not surprisingly red. It’s the yellow, chalky soil of the Brückchen that catches my eye. I’ve always found the wines of Brückchen to be chalky, and there it is right in front of me. It’s one more win for the spirit of place.
2002 Niersteiner Oelberg Riesling Spätlese
Tons of ripe, juicy fruit, but not overpoweringly sweet. There’s a depth to the flavors, a thickness that is not texturally heavy, but rich in a sense of material waiting to be unleashed. This is probably the deepest of the 2002 Strub wines.
2002 Niersteiner Paterberg Riesling Spätlese
I buy Paterberg nearly every year, and it’s because there’s clarity of Riesling fruit. This is another example. As always it’s zippy and peachy with lime and herb nuances. There’s not much in the way of stones here, but refreshing acidity keeps it interesting. This comes from a moderately sloped portion of the Paterberg site (not part of the Roter Hang).
2002 Niersteiner Paterberg Riesling Spätlese**
The whole * thing at Strub appears to be a bit of a joke. Certainly they are using it when there is a better Paterberg Spätlese beyond the normal bottling, but the number of stars seems to be designed to confound folks who need excessive order. Laura and Margit and I laugh at the thought of people desperately searching for the non-existent one star Paterberg. This wine was not considered to be quite up to the level of the 1998 or 2001 *** wines, so the **. It comes from the top of the hill in Paterberg, where the wind dries out the grapes. That drying effect is evident in the wine, as it’s a concentrate of Paterberg. The peaches are riper, the herbs come to a candied sensation, and there’s a textural thickness and richness not evident in the regular bottling. If the regular Paterberg is the appetizer, this is the main course.
We’ve had a badly corked bottle, and one that was initially questionable (though later exonerated), so we spark a brief discussion on corks. Plastic seems a viable alternative for the Niersteiner liter wine, but it’s the pradikat wines that are difficult. The Strubs are not on the screw cap bandwagon, so we offer a little encouragement. It’s again the idea that waiting 20 years to find a wine corked is vastly worse (to my mind) than drinking that same wine at 5 years from a clean screw cap bottle.
Luckily the final wine is not corked.
2002 Niersteiner Paterberg Riesling Eiswein
This was picked at 165 degrees öchsle and has 220 grams of residual sugar and it shows. There’s a density to the texture, and the flavors head to dried apricots and golden raisins. There’s a spicy note on the finish that’s part chili pepper and part cinnamon red-hots. There’s more lift and life to this than the 2001, if not quite as much thickness (and perhaps that’s a good thing).
The overall collection is very good. I’m struck again by the consistency, though perhaps a little more adventure (as at Selbach-Oster) would be good. Nevertheless Strub produces some fine wines from great and not so great sites. It’s perhaps the Paterberg where Walter’s achievement as a grower/vintner is most notable.
Walter has re-emerged from the cellar, and Margit tells him of a request. We’ve heard that he harvested his first crop of Grüner Veltliner, and we would like to taste it. So Walter takes us down to the cellar to get a sample from the old cask. Around us things are bubbling, and the air is a bit thin. So we head back upstairs to sample the wine. It’s certainly Grüner Veltliner, from the peppery aroma and flavor, to the light pea nuance. Not a big wine (from only 4 year old vines in the Brückchen), but certainly well made. It will be interesting to follow Walter’s Grüner Veltliner over the next few years.
WITTMANN
Weingut Günter Wittmann has been on our radar screen since the 1997 vintage. In addition to some fine Rieslings, we’ve also had some delicious wines from offbeat varieties, including the wackiest one of them all: Albalonga. Beth Sheligo has a small stash of 1991 Wittmann Albalonga Spätlese that has aged into a fantastic, creamy, tropical fruit riot. The 1997 Albalonga Auslese is like viognier on six kinds of steroids, and the more recent BA and TBA level wines are about as rich and tropical as a dessert wine can be. (I won’t even mention the 1994 TBA, as it might get this story an NC-17 rating.)
It’s harvest time at Wittmann. Most of the Pinot Blanc is already in, and the Riesling will (as everywhere else) start the week of 9/29. We briefly say hello to Phillip Wittmann, but as he’s extremely busy, his mother presents the wines to us.
We explored the whole range of wines from Wittmann. We tasted dry and sweet, Riesling and other varieties. About all we missed was Huxelrebe.
2002 Wittmann Trocken
Relatively neutral. Not much going on except a touch of citrus and some subtle acids.
2002 Grüner Silvaner Trocken
Smells and tastes like green apple skin. It even has that touch of green apple bitterness. It’s dry but not so dry as to be austere. Still a basic wine.
2002 Weissburgunder Trocken
Fuller fruit flavors than either of the above. There’s some apple and pear. This still has good acids.
2002 Chardonnay Trocken
I’ve never had a wine this buttery that did not taste like a tree. You could throw this on movie popcorn. It’s definitely not oaky, the butter is all malo, but that’s all there is. My arteries are hardening just smelling it.
2002 Silvaner “S” Trocken
This wine was brought up in large, new casks with no charring. The effect is that while it is a dry wine, it tastes subtly sweet from the wood contact. The richness is also enhanced, but I have no idea what I would do with this wine.
2002 Weissburgunder “S” Trocken
Barrique aged and it shows. This is distinctly woody, with peach and pear flavors. Too much wood.
2002 Chardonnay “S” Trocken
This either had lighter wood treatment than the Weissburgunder, or it more expressive fruit, because the apples and pears show through with some vanilla and a touch of minerals on the finish. If I was forced to drink Chardonnay I could stomach this over something from California. Damning with really faint praise.
(At this point a little phrase crept into my head: If you can’t grow Riesling, don’t plant anything.”)
Inevitably we moved on to the Rieslings. We were not talking much because there was a touch of a language gap. It wasn’t that we couldn’t communicate, but that wasn’t comfortable. We did talk about the Grosses Gewächs movement, and that Wittmann has done quite well with their Westhofen sites to produce trocken Rieslings. Prior to our trip the Wittmann dry wines had been right at the top of what we had ever tasted. (I didn’t say it that way.)
2002 Riesling Trocken
Pear, apple and peach on the nose. Palate is dominated by minerals and acidity. Too austere for me.
2002 Westhofener Riesling Trocken
Wittmann has adopted a very Burgundian quality hierarchy for their Rieslings. The basic Riesling Trocken is the Riesling equivalent of the Bourgogne, with this Westhofener wine serving as the village wine. It’s right on the hairy edge of trocken to my taste. The extra touch of sugar brightens up the fruit, and the lemon and apple flavors are very expressive. It’s extremely lemony on the finish.
There are three Grosses Gewächs wines, though I would place two of them as the premier cru level, with one at the grand cru.
2002 Aulerde Riesling Grosses Gewächs
Go back a couple of years, and this would be labeled as Spätlese Trocken. Now I’m not sure what the semi-informed customer is supposed to think. (I doubt the uninformed customer ever buys much German wine.) The movement towards a dry wine hierarchy has worked out better than I hoped, but it’s still a marketing disaster outside of Germany. This dry wine is substantially more full-bodied than the Westhofener, with loads of forward peachy fruit and bright acids. It has a touch of bitterness on the finish that’s noticeable enough to be distracting. If the bitterness were not quite so noticeable I would like this more.
2002 Kirchspiel Riesling Grosses Gewächs
Singing in the same voice as the Aulerde, with even more peach on the nose. This does not have the bitterness, but it’s monolithic right now. Give it some time, and we’ll see if it develops some more interesting aromas and flavors. There’s lots of stuffing here, but it needs complexity.
2002 Morstein Riesling Grosses Gewächs
This is the Grand Cru in my opinion. Peaches (again), but also apricots, apple and minerals on the nose. On the palate it’s fresh, fruity, zingy, mineral and very long. There’s also great thickness behind the forward flavors, as if it’s a coiled spring waiting to explode. This will be great with 2 or 3 years to blossom, or perhaps even with some decanting.
All in all this was not a bad collection of dry Rieslings, but it was not among the best I tasted on the trip. I think Wittmann slipped a touch in 2002, and other vintners did better than in prior years. The Morstein was once again the class of the field; as had been the case in 2001, so nothing about the making of excellent dry wine changed, but perhaps the materials from the other sites were not truly up to the standard needed for the high wire act of trocken wine.
After about a dozen dry wines we’re more than ready for the off-dry versions.
2002 Riesling Spätlese
This is all about pink grapefruit and spice. It’s on the nose and on the palate. It’s zingy and fresh if you’re a fan of grapefruit (I’m not), as well as being a pretty good QPR if it’s in your preferred style. I like some ripe pink grapefruit flavors as an accent, but this is heavy-handed in that direction.
2002 Westhofener Morstein Riesling Spätlese
This is more like it. The pink grapefruit is still there, but it’s an accent to peaches, papaya and mango. This is yummy stuff, and the acids are well balanced with the sugar for current drinking. Not much in the way of minerality here, but a later walk through the vineyards of Westhofen shows there’s not a lot of stones around (at least compared to say Mosel or Nahe vineyards).
2002 Spätburgunder Rosé Auslese
First off, the wine is the color of Chardonnay. It’s not a Rosé in anything but name. It smalls like strawberries and tastes like caramel with a fruit cream topping. The finish is also overbearingly sweet. I have frequently liked the “weirdo” wines from Wittmann, so I’m tempted to give this one a pass. Perhaps it had just been open too long.
2002 Albalonga Beerenauslese
This is redolent of honey on the nose. There’s also a lot of tropical fruit of the more exotic varieties (e.g. passion fruit) with some crazy-ripe grapefruit romping through as well. This is wacky stuff. Apricots, grapefruit, passion fruit and tropical flower honey jump all over the palate. Yummy!!
2002 Riesling TBA
As with many of the wines, there’s no vineyard designation on the label. This is actually (but not surprisingly) lighter in profile than the Albalonga, with less honey but more delineation and elegance. It’s less a botrytis bomb than an expression of ultra-ripe fruit. The mouthfeel is not heavy, and carries more peach and candied lime than dried apricot flavors. This is elegant TBA, and very silky.
JOSEF LEITZ
2002 Estate Riesling Trocken
From the Rüdesheimer Bischofsberg, this is adamantly stony with transparent tree-fruit flavors. Dry but not harsh.
2002 Rüdesheimer Bischofsberg Riesling Spätlese Trocken
Minerals, apple skin and lemons dominate the nose. There’s all that and some engaging melon flavors on the palate.
2002 Rüdesheimer Berg Kaisersteinfels Spatlese Trocken
Similarly mineral driven as the above wines, but more laser focus. It’s also a touch tart, coming across as a little too lemony.
2002 Rüdesheimer Berg Schlossberg Riesling Trocken
The softest of the wines so far, with very spice pear and peach fruit. Broader in the mouth, with the peachiness carrying through to the finish.
2002 Rüdesheimer Berg Schlossberg Riesling Spätlese Trocken
This starts from the same place as the previous wine, but adds much greater depth. It’s also somewhat closed, exhibiting significant palate weight, but not any additional flavor intensity. Needs time.
2002 Rüdesheimer Berg Rottland Riesling Spätlese Trocken
The first taste is from a Riedel Riesling/Zin/Chianti glass. It’s the richest wine so far, with a touch of creaminess on the palate. Melon, ripe apples and a hint of brown butter all mingle on the nose and palate. Later, from a Riedel Burgundy glass (and with two hours of air) it had put on significant weight, and could easily be compared to a wine from Hirtzberger or Knoll for depth and concentration. This is fabulous Riesling, whether dry or sweet, and it’s in my top two for dry wine of the trip (and top ten easily overall).
2002 Charta Riesling
This is one of the Rheingau dry wine categories. This particular wine has fantastic length of peach on the palate, but not the integrated, complex set of aromatics of the Rottland. I neglected to ask the origin of this wine, and we quickly moved on to another discussion anyway.
2002 Rüdesheimer Kirchenpfad Riesling Kabinett
It’s Halbtrocken, but no mention of that designator is on the label. Crisp and focused it has apple skin aromas and flavors. It’s very easy to drink, and Johannes says they have been drinking lots of it over the long, hot summer.
2002 Rüdesheimer Berg Kaisersteinfels Riesling Spätlese
This is partly from that 15-year old barrique in the cellar. It’s a dry-ish Spätlese, made from 90% Kaisersteinfels Trocken with 10% sweet Spätlese added to raise the residual sugar. There’s a distinct floral element to the nose, with hints of vanilla and hay (the barrique use is divulged after we taste) along with heirloom apple flavors and a spiced apple flavor on the finish.
2002 Rüdesheimer Magdalenenkreuz Riesling Spätlese
Typically for the wines from Leitz, this is the softest so far. There’s lots of apples and peach on the nose, and the palate is like a ripe fruit salad.
2002 Rüdesheimer Berg Schlossberg Riesling Spätlese
Botrytis comes in with the Schlossberg, as it has for the last several vintages. This smells of honey drenched peaches, and on the palate the peaches are subtly baked with cinnamon and clove spices. It has a very long finish, accented by clove infused honey.
2002 Rüdesheimer Berg Roseneck Riesling Spätlese
The absence of botrytis after the Schlossberg is a bit of a shock, but this has the depth to carry itself. The acidity is also much more focused, so it cuts through the lingering thickness of the Schlossberg. Apples, talc, flowers and white peach aromas and flavors are much more lively. I prefer this for its lively acidity. It would also be much more food friendly.
This would be enough wine on any normal day, but today is not normal. After scaling the heights of trocken wine (bet you never though you would read that from me!) and then a fine collection of Spätlese with two of the most different but equally grand wines that can possibly comes from only 500 yards apart, it’s time to move into dessert wine world. There is no way to prepare. There are no words to describe the generosity of Johannes Leitz, and just to make it better he’s a wizard with botrytis.
2002 Rüdesheimer Berg Rottland Riesling Auslese
Have you ever tasted a perfect baked apple? Not the kind where the apple has been consumed by the heat to the point of mush, but where there is still apple there in combination with all the brown spice, butter and caramelization of sugar. This is that wine. It still retains pure apple flavors, but they are part of an integrated whole comprising brown sugar, butter, cinnamon, nutmeg and fine, fresh honey drizzled on top to finish the dish. It’s nearly BA in its style, but so clean and clear that all the elements are seen, rather than being a mixed mess of sweet flavors. This is great Auslese with Rhein concentration and Mosel clarity of expression.
2002 Rüdesheimer Kirchenpfad Riesling Beerenauslese
Such intense vanilla on the nose. There’s a total balance of botrytis apricots and pure vanilla on the palate. This coats the mouth and then washes everything clean with acidity, so the flavors of apricot, vanilla, fresh peach and wildflower honey come across as incredibly nimble for BA. There is something special about a BA that can be so rich yet so elegant in expression.
2002 Rüdesheimer Kirchenpfad Riesling Trockenbeerenauslese
This is unusually placed, as there are two more BA wines to go. The easiest way to describe this is to take the BA, ramp up the intensity but maintain the focus. I do find the BA to have a greater clarity of flavors, where the TBA increases the botrytis glaze. TBA seems to me to obscure the varietal (though not much in this case), where BA may be the essence of Riesling dessert wine. My only regret of this day is that Johannes has no Eiswein to show. (We’ll take care of that later on in the day.)
2002 Rüdesheimer Berg Kaisersteinfels Riesling Beerenauslese
There’s more obvious acidity here, so it clears its own path through the lingering effects of the TBA. Very elegant, with ripe apple, apricot and honey drenched slate flavors. I keep coming back to this, but it’s unfortunately not for sale yet (Johannes will likely auction it next year).
2002 Rüdesheimer Berg Schlossberg Riesling Beerenauslese
Even more intensity of botrytis here than in the prior wines. I wonder what it is about the Schlosberg that promotes this, but Johannes is briefly out of the room, and the question goes unanswered. Apricots, nearly hot spice and candied honeysuckle (yep!) come together as the richest of this quartet of BA/TBA wines. Somewhere under there is still the essence of Riesling grown on mineral soils, and it comes out on the finish. There’s nothing cloying here, just intensity.
Eventually there were six of us around the table, the doors were open to let in the breeze, and we kept tasting and retasting all of the wines. It’s a rare privilege to retaste BA and TBA wines, and I do that, but the Rottland Spätlese Trocken is also lurking in its Burgundy glass, and it’s a wonder in itself. You know a trocken is good if you can finish a group of dessert wines, go back to the trocken, and not recoil in horror. The Rottland passes the test with flying colors. Of course I have to make my last taste a BA, and it’s the Kirchenpfad.
We could sit and drink all day (I think Johannes would allow it), but we have places to be, and other adventures to experience. Leaving with some Auslese and BA (the Kirchenpfad), we bid our farewell to Johannes. We leave him with some Ridge Lytton Springs, and it’s funny because he says “This must be good, because people keep bringing me bottles of Ridge.”
ROBERT WEIL
Weil is the first estate that looks a little like California to me. The numerous buildings and pebbled pathways remind me a little Chateau St. Jean. The tasting room gives off a similar impression, with the entire room consisting of glass, marble and stainless steel. It’s a cold environment, and I’m initially wary of this visit.
After seeing to a customer who precedes us, and some minor confusion about who we we’re to see, Caroline sets us up at the tasting bar. Black marble, stainless steel and a fountain in the middle don’t exactly strike me as traditional Germany, but this estate does have major capital infusion (from a Japanese corporation), and the wines are of high reputation. We make our usual request to taste the trocken and lieblich wines, and quickly there are three glasses in front of us.
2002 Riesling QbA Trocken
2002 Riesling Kabinett Trocken
2002 Riesling Spätlese Trocken
Presented as a group this was an interesting experiment in pradikat. Increasing the pradikat increased the fruit level in the wines, while the mineral basis held steady. I can say that I was not fond of the QbA, as I found it austere, with some shrill lemony fruit. The Kabinett leaned to lime juice on peach, with serious chunky minerals. The Spätlese had (expectedly) the most depth, but seemed closed after the Kabinett. The fruit leaned more in a pure peach direction, with the minerals not playing off that fruit quite as well. Of this trio I really liked the Kabinett a lot, and would really like to have it over an extended period with appropriate food.
2002 Riesling Kabinett Halbtrocken
2002 Riesling Spätlese Halbtrocken
While I did not get a clear answer on the origin of these (and the above) wines, I did find out that they are blended from Kiedrich Gräfenberg fruit and fruit from other sites. As with other producers, I really enjoyed both of these offerings, especially the Kabinett. Halbtrocken seems to be the balance point, where sugar is not overtly noticeable, but just brightens (and also rounds out) the fruit. Flowers (hyacinth), peach and persistent minerals flow through the Kabinett, while the Spatlese is a standing monolith of stone with subtle accents of apple skin and peach. It’s very interesting to me that I prefer the Kabinett level offerings in both “flights.” Perhaps the spätlese wines are just in need of time to show off their materials, but the kabinetten, to my taste, were better balanced.
To this point we have not had a wine labeled with the Kiedrich Gräfenberg. It’s a conscious decision on the part of Weil to only use the vineyard name on the best wines. The Gräfenberg is the flagship (and a truly beautiful site as well).
2002 Riesling Charta
2002 Kiedrich Gräfenberg Riesling Erstes Gewächs
Now we have even greater depth, but also better balance. Of this pair I prefer the Erstes Gewächs because it is not only solid, with chewy extract to spare, but also more expressive of its peach, pear, nut and flower aromatics and flavors along with the broad mineral base. The Charta seemed dominated by minerals (and acid) at the expense of the fruit. I kept returning to the Erstes Gewächs throughout the tasting (much as I had done with the Leitz Rottland earlier in the day) and it was able to stand up to whatever I could throw at it. I compared the Erstes Gewächs to Trimbach’s CFE for its sheer density. Perhaps it was an unfair comparison to have the Charta next to this wine.
2002 Riesling Kabinett
2002 Riesling Spätlese
2002 Kiedrich Gräfenberg Riesling Spätlese
Speaking of unfair comparisons, this flight pitted two “value” wines versus one of the big boys. That being said, I wish I could buy Weil wines at the source, for at about 10 and 15 Euros each respectively, the “basic” Kabinett and Spätlese represent great value. The Kabinett dances around its 35 grams of residual sugar with an elegance that accentuates its floral elements. It’s perhaps the prettiest Kabinett of the trip, even though it has great palate persistence (hence extract). It’s quite a feat to make a wine so rich in body yet so elegant in palate expression. The Spätlese leans more towards ultra-ripe pear and peach, without the elegance of the Kabinett, but with more direct power. It’s also distinctly sweet on entry, yet the finish is a wash of flowers and stones. The Gräfenberg Spätlese heads to Auslese in power, with a thick core of peaches coated in berry essence. There’s even a touch of cherry in a Nahe direction. Certainly it’s the most expensive in this group (and outstrips even Dönnhoff in US prices at this level), but I’m prepared to accept it as a wine that will age as a classic Auslese, and treat it as such.
Throughout we’ve been talking with Caroline, and only a few customers drop by the tasting room. We discuss the rumor that Weil has bought the rest of the winery back from the Japanese (not true), and the general state of Rheingau wines (she’s very curious about how the Leitz wines showed). All in all we have very enjoyable conversation, and she mentions that she generally does not enjoy the tasting room because most people “try three or four wines, ask to use the restroom and leave.” (It’s ironic that at this point both Laura and I need to use the facilities. It must be power of suggestion. Count this as the first stainless steel bathroom I’ve ever seen.)
I was prepared for the tasting to be over at this point, but there was more.
2002 Kiedrich Gräfenberg Riesling Auslese
I’ve only ever had one other Weil Auslese, and it struck me as perfectly balanced Beerenauslese. This wine hits me in very much the same way, with ripe peach, tropical fruit (mango, passion fruit) and honeyed minerals loading up on the nose and palate. It’s ripe, rich and impeccably balanced, with a nutty, peachy finish that’s positively arresting.
2002 Kiedrich Gräfenberg Riesling Eiswein
2002 Kiedrich Gräfenberg Riesling Beerenauslese
Thank God for the acidity, because the BA has all the elegance and lift of the Eiswein. This is not a BA of thick honey, but of pure fruit, amplifying the Auslese and adding overt, honeyed richness without a crude singe of botrytis. Certainly botrytis plays an important role in the wine, but it’s in concentrating the flavors, not creating them on its own. The Eiswein is equal in strength and length to the BA, yet with the acids plays a longer song as it dances across the palate. I know this is not much of a tasting note, but it relays more of the experience of drinking these wines (and knowing I likely will not do so again) that by just expressing base flavors. Both of these wines are blessings of nature, and capitalism can only reduce their stature.
Surely this must be the end of the tasting. We sit and chat with Caroline, and I’m drawn back to any number of the wines. Out of some strange mix of fear and respect I don’t pour additional tastes of the BA or Eiswein, but the Auslese and Erstes Gewächs both revisit my nose and palate. It’s the Auslese that ends up as our purchase because it’s available in 375 ml format for easy packing. (I would have liked to get one bottle of the Erstes Gewächs, but it turns out for the best that we did not when we have difficulties with our “friends” at Lufthansa the next day.)
Caroline disappears into the back room again, ostensibly to put away some bottles and glasses, but she reappears with another glass. We’re somewhere around 200 wines on this trip, and it’s blind wine time again. But this wine is a total departure from where we’ve been. It’s older, and the aromatics are captivating. There’s still fruit, but it veers more in the lime and green apple direction. Secondary aromatics are in full play, with the clean forest, clear spring water and wet stone character of perfectly mature Riesling. There’s no hint of botrytis, and the effect is ethereal in its aromatic elegance but also totally present on the palate. Caroline is smiling as I reason it to be a Kabinett, and I work through an exercise of eliminating vintages. I’m wary of guessing too old (and repeating my mistake at Selbach’s), so I go conservative and say 1990 Kabinett. Of course I’m wrong (the acid profile should have given away that this was no 1990), and it turns out to be 1983 Kiedricher Gräfenberg Riesling Kabinett. |