WTN: Zeltinger Flabsberg

[David M. Bueker]

2005 Selbach-Oster Zeltinger Schlossberg Riesling Auslese
Rich, displaying botrytis spice notes and excellent depth of fruit, this at first seems like an extremely promising wine. But it lacks essential structure and liveliness that makes German Riesling exciting. Sure if you want beerenauslese-light that's easy to down by the magnum then go for it, but if you want something that brings expression fruit allied to minerality that invites sip after sip then look elsewhere. This wine is a highly unusual incident of failure in the Selbach cellar.

Has it always lacked this structure? Not something that is hiding in an inbetween stage?

[David M. Bueker]

I don't really recall, but this had zero, zilch, nada even lurking in the background.

And I was wondering why I had never heard of this vineyard!

!

Flabby Schlossberg? That is shocking, especially given how spectacularly good both the 2-star Auslese and the "Schmitt" from this vineyard were some time back.

Oh Dear - i have some of these, yet to be tried.

I also have the 05 Auslese Rotlay - should I expect that to be different?

cheers

Andrew

[David M. Bueker]

Trust me - I was very surprised at the lifeless performance of this wine. I went digging back through the tasting books from Terry Theise portfolio events & found that I absolutely adored this wine in June 2006. I certainly hope that time slims it down & brings better balance as I have 4 more in the cellar (along with the ** version, the Rotlay (different vineyard) and the Schmitt).

My main concern is that I seem to be turning into an acidity snob.

Dear David,

Love the title.

I would add (not having had the wine, sadly) that the proletariat (as represented by CellarTracker users) loves it. So despair not, unless you're truly an acid lover.

David, can I also say that I loved the score you gave. Grade inflation is so rampant that it is really hard to see what scores mean. The idea that an "average" wine (even if we stipulate that the average bottle was worse back then) deserves 85 points is silly.

Walt

[David M. Bueker]

Thanks for the feedback Walt.

I must admit that the more time goes on the more I am troubled by the performance of this bottle. Hopefully it was compromised or going through a rough phase, as it was truly disappointing.

That said, I have had 5 or 6 really disappointing wines in the last week or so that should have been much better. Bad luck or something about me right now? Not sure.

Funny, David.