Wonderful nose, but more sweet and heavier than I'm used to. This could be because I don't drink Pfalz wines, but very nice nevertheless. Intense flavors, very sweet, peachy and syrupy. At 130 Oechsle, this is more like a berenauslese.

Terry Theise gave this a ++ and raved about it. Bill Mayer thinks that Dartings, "...often seem heavy and graceless, sweet without the livening acidity that makes other late harvest wines so magical."

I tend to agree with Bill more on this one. Wonderful nose, very intense flavors, but seems unbalanced to me. Mineral characteristics seem to be hidden due to the sweetness. The decernable salt is attractive and helps bring it a little in balance with the sweetness, but I would definitely prefer more acidity.

Recommended drinking range is 8 to 27 years, so it is probably premature to judge this wine fairly. $19.95. Good price if you are looking for a desert wine. This wine is definitely for those riesling lovers who like heavy flavorful intense sweet wines, vs those who like elegant lively inspirational wines. Pretty transparent which type I prefer.

Darting produces 12,500 cases which is fairly high for a "classified" estate. One of Terry's best selling estates due to good QPR, nice flavors and nice bouquet.

Tried the wine again last night and the wine was much better balanced. I thought that it was cloyingly sweet the first night, but now the sweetness is more in check. Impressive intensity.

Okay, I know I'm talking to myself, but I just read some raving reviews about this wine in the Parker BB. I can see why people love it. I am now drinking the 3rd 187ml portion and it is an amazingly concentrated wine of nice flavors for $20. It has gotten better after 3-4 days and that is definitely a good sign.

Your not talking to yourself..lol I heard you! I am just reading some notes because I really dont know how or what to look for when I take notes. I'm new at this, and Revliss suggested I jump on in.....I'll have a wine or 2 up here from Portugal in a day or so so I hope you can jsut me some pointers. haha

Punkinpie

gatc-keep posting those notes. i have alot more wine to buy.

Exactly.

When I opened the bottle on Nov 29th, I split it into 4, drinking 1/4th that night. I drank the last portion which I had in a 187ml bottle on December 20th. Kept all of the remainders in the refrigerator sealed tight and filled to the brim in the 187ml bottles.

The wine was wonderful and as good as ever. It actually got better the second night since it was almost too much the first night. I look at this as a beerenauslese for $20. Actually, I would think Sauternes fans would like this wine.

From the Seaquam/dbw4 dinner on 3/15/04...

Yet another experience with then tremendous wine courtesy of GATC, this continues to be simply stunning. Amazingly powerful, perfumed, and intense with impeccable balance and purity. 96 points.

I have only three bottles of this. When should I open the first?

This wine was an awesome treat and incredible surprise. This one is pure honeysuckle on the nose and a nice balance of sweet and sour with just the right amount of sweetness. This was my WOTN. 99 pts.

Thanks for the advice. I tasted this wine in a store about a year ago and bought three bottles. I believe GATC called this his wine of the year for 2003. Very high praise indeed.

If you are combining quality and value then this is an excellent candidate for wine of the decade. It will be hard to beat.

For what it's worth, I had this wine with foie gras "two ways" at the eBob/Parker dinner in March 2003. It was a sublime match & equal to if not better than the ZH Gewurz VT served in the same flight.

Rieslingfan, good comments. I am also looking forward to the 2003 version. I had thought that the 2002 would also be good since Pfalz was supposed to be better in 2002 than 2001. I asked Terry Theise about this and IIRC he decided not to import it.

I've had this wine 8-9 times. It was always stunning, but about 3 months ago, I thought that it may be going through a phase since the acidity was brutally out of balance. But, the last bottle was more like the rest.

Since everyone knows that I am totally biased about Germany riesings I can make the following statement. Ever since I first had this wine (about a year ago), I have not been able to appreciate Sauternes anymore and I've had some of the best produced in the last 40 years, courtesy of generous forumites.

I've got 4-5 cases stashed, so the BAWE members will be able to experience the progress of this wine for many many years to come.

I should add, that they raised the price on the last 8 cases I bought, so the price is $25.20 with tax, vs the $19.99 (without tax) for the first 5 (or so) cases I first bought. Still an amazing value.

That is is GATC, a tremendous value. Thanks again for sharing these with us

Not much to add to what others have written. I had just finished a glass of excellent Riesling, which paled in comparison to the Rieslaner. This is an exceptional palate-coating wine that keeps you wanting to put more of it in your mouth, lip-smacking acidity balancing the sweetness. Hard not to drink it quickly. The most remarkable aspect, to me, is the extremely long finish that just keeps pumping out pear/peach/mango/honey flavors for what must be over a minute. A real treat!

On a related note, what is Rieslaner, anyway? I thought it might be a Riesling/Sylvaner cross, but that's Scheurebe. How do you build a Rieslaner?

Here's what the Oxford Companion to Wine says about Sheurebe:

Quote:

---

Although recent DNA 'fingerprinting' suggests otherwise, Scheurebe is thought to have been a Silvaner × Riesling cross, but it is much more than a riper, more productive replica of Riesling. Provided it reaches full maturity...Scheurebe wines have their own exuberant, racy flavours of blackcurrants or even rich grapefruit.

---

It is named after Dr Georg Scheu, the original director of the viticultural institute at Alzey in the Rheinhessen and was introduced in the first decade of the 20th century.

And about Rieslaner:

Quote:

---

Increasingly rare, late ripening Silvaner × Riesling crossing that is grown to a very limited extent in Germany's Franken region where, provided it can reach full ripeness, it can produce wines with race and curranty fruit.

---

According to the Gualt-Millau guide, Müller-Catior has 13% Rieslaner production and Darting 6%. Two other Pfalz producers that sometime make a Rieslaner are August Ziegler and Karl Schaefer.

In Franken, FÜRSTLICH CASTELLSCHES DOMÄNENAMT (usually referred to as Castell, which is also the name on the label) has the reputation for the best Rieslaner wines. They make a TBA, BA, Auslese and Spätlese every year. They do not have any english on their website alas.www.castell.de

Rudolf Fürst also makes very good Rieslaner dessert wines from time to time. See http://www.weingut-rudolf-fuerst.de/index2.htm and click on "For International Visitors" to get an English overview.

Along with newcomer Horst Sauer, these are usually considered to be the best Franken wineries.

It sure is funny how many different grapes those Germans got out of crossing Riesling and Silvaner.

Another up and coming (because they only recently started bottling it) Rieslaner producer is Messmer, also from the Pfalz.

Quote:

---

It sure is funny how many different grapes those Germans got out of crossing Riesling and Silvaner.

---

It sure is! The name "Rieslaner" suggested this cross to me, but then I found out Scheurebe had already resulted from it. I guess there must have been different clones of the Riesling and/or Sylvaner used for both.

Thanks for providing the info, cbmac.