WTN: Lunch in the Country

[David M. Bueker]

Salil hosted Laura and I for a Friday lunch today. He made lots of delicious food, and between the three of us we opened lots of delicious wines - not a clunker in the bunch.

2005 Muller-Catoir Gimmeldinger Mandelgarten Riesling Spatlese
Clearly the richness of top auslese, but not heavy or syrupy at all. Very tropical in its fruit profile, and the longer it was open the more creamy and even buttery the mouthfeel/flavors became. Fantastic, but be warned that this is really an auslese in style.

2008 Robert Weil Riesling Spatlese (estate)
We should have had this first, as it showed much more classical spatlese & as such was initially blown away by the Catoir. After some food to clear the palate the wine had more of a chance to show its inherent quality - bright, peachy fruit with sizzling acidity that begs for rich fare to cut through (we were dining vegetarian, so perhaps not the best meal for this wine). I like this a lot for its cut and absolute purity.

2008 Emrich-Schonleber Monzinger Fruhlingspatzchen Riesling Spatlese
This threads the needle between the prior two wines, with a somewhat richer and sweeter expression than the Weil, but more cut than the Catoir. Again great precision and purity in this spatlese, and also a lingering fruity/pungent finish. Excellent wine.

1996 Muller-Catoir Mussbacher Eselhaut Rieslaner Auslese
Deciding to dip a toe into the shark-infested waters of 1996, this rewards with a ridiculously complex set of aromatics and flavors with an acid balance that makes it fit for taking out in public. It still has some of that 1996 wildness, but not nearly the rip your tongue out of your mouth acid that it had on release. Perhaps these are really coming around after 14 years. In any even the main attraction here was the kalaidescopic set of aromatics ranging from smoked meat through pine forest with chili pepper, horseradish, apricot, decaying leaves, spearmint, and just about anything else you can imagine in between.

2001 Kruger-Rumpf Munsterer Pittersberg Riesling Eiswein
Here's the blazing acidity, and also the purity of expression that comes with eiswein. There was a touch of acetone on the nose, but that fell away after a few minutes to reveal honeyed fruit and a 9 volt battery to the tongue jolt of acid. What a wild ride these last two wines were, and that was after three great spatlesen!

Was a pleasure having you and Laura over, as always. That was a very fun, relaxed afternoon with lots of great wine and food.

I didn't find the Gimmeldinger Mandelgarten Spatlese as buttery as you did, certainly creamy though I found it pleasantly smoky/faintly petrolly with some developed elements on top of the very rich fruit. And as we'd discussed, Martin Franzen's making some lovely wines these days that are really worth enjoying (regardless of comparisons with the Schwarz era). I'll definitely have to open his '08 Scheurebe in the fall with you.
The Weil was delicious, though for me overwhelmed (both in terms of richness and complexity) by the other two Spatlese on either side. Absolutely loved the Schonleber Fruhlingsplatzchen, which kept getting more floral and exotic with time, very rich for the vintage but retaining fantastic precision right through.

The dessert wines - wow. The Rieslaner was insane (and a shockingly good match with the cauliflower/lentil stew), just an unreal depth of flavour with intensity and power that's hard to put into words (then again that can be said for a lot of the Schwarz Catoir wines, which are perhaps my favourite wines out there).
Was a real treat to be able to enjoy that and the Kruger-Rumpf Eiswein side by side, with the Eiswein not as complex/wild as the Rieslaner, but with amazing purity and razor-sharp precision. Thanks again for bringing those.

Don't you guys ever work

Sounds like a great lunch. Over the years I have tasted relatively widely across German producers but don't tend to buy very widely because of limited time constraints. But your posts always remind me of how much truly delicious German wine there is. We are spoiled!

[David M. Bueker]

Don't you guys ever work

I try to. Friday was a furlough day though so we made the best of it! 4 day weekends rock no matter how they happen.

Friday was a furlough day though so we made the best of it!

Ouch. Furloughs are tough but it sounds like you did make the best of it.

I was mainly joking because it seems like you guys (and especially Salil) seem to find time for lots of wine dinners. But hey, there's lots of great German wine out there and it needs to be drunk!