Is 2010 a good Kabinett vintage?

On a brief exchange on a social network site I claimed that 10 is not a good Kabinett vintage, but noone agreed. What do others think, who have perhaps tasted a bit more widely than I have? My reservation is this: 2010 has extreme acid levels combined with high must weights. The grapes seem to be less ripe ned than dehydrated, concentrating unripe flavors, acids, and sugar, which makes for an uneasy package for least ripe wines, i.e. Kabinett. I generally prefer Spätlesen in 2010, and some Auslesen (if they don't taste too much like Eiswein). These can be quite thrilling. The same holds true for dry wines: the lesser ones that were harvested too early I find inexpressive even if the de-acidification was done well, while the higher end is genuine exciting.

Peter

Hello Peter,

are you referring to the Mosel region in particular or to all regions in Germany?
I liked the dry kabinetts I had from the Pfalz (though I was told that many of them are degraded Spätlesen).

Best Winfried

[David M. Bueker]

Peter,

I will be more informed in a few days after I taste a bunch of the wines. But bear in mind that my sample will be skewed, as the producers' offerings will already have been culled for sub-par wines by their very capable importer.

Peter,

I will be more informed in a few days after I taste a bunch of the wines. But bear in mind that my sample will be skewed, as the producers' offerings will already have been culled for sub-par wines by their very capable importer.

You will taste the Theise portfolio?

In any case, I'm not talking about wines where the de-acidification went wrong. I have yet to be genuinely excited about a Kabinett from the best estates, or a smaller dry wine. It applies to all regions, but my sample is small. I only tasted at my favorite places (Keller, Schaefer, Dönnhoff, Vollenweider)

[David M. Bueker]

Peter,

Yes, I will taste from the Theise portfolio. For what it's worth, I had the 2010 St. Urbans-Hof Riesling QbA "Urbans" the other night. It was very good, and what I expected - bright, focused and more austere than in numerous recent vintages. The fruit ran more to green apple than the recent direction of peaches.

Well, there certainly wasn’t much clean, botrytis-free Auslesen produced, though with the help of botrytis, must weights got quite high. For me, it is a superb Spätlese vintage and also very strong for GG Riesling (which at first doesn’t make sense, as there wasn’t sugar to balance out the acidity, but rather tons of other stuff –body, mineral, extract.)

As for being a good Kabinett vintage or not, I’m not sure it makes sense to generalize. I’ve tasted lots of Pfälzer Kabinett that is spectacular, and last week I tasted a bunch of Mosel and Rheinhessen stuff. The Mosel Spätlesen Trocken and Feinherb were inexplicably better than most of the sweeter wines and I also preferred them to the Kabinett wines.

It wasn’t hard in 2010 to use your vorlese grapes (some of Kabinett ripeness, some under-ripe, some botrytis-rotten) and get an average Kabinett Oechsle, so the name on the label is going to make all the difference as far as quality goes.

And then again, with all of these vintage-induced style-swings, what the hell does Kabinett even mean anymore anyway?

Cheers,
Bill

Thanks for your input, Bill.

I like the Spätlesen and GG very much. Keller produced a fantastic range, for example, in both styles. I never buy his sweet wines, because I prefer MSR & Nahe for this style, but in 2010 I could not resist. A good Kabinett vintage needs a certain ripeness without high sugar levels, in my view. Of course I don't want Kabinett to be just Spätlese on the cheap. So, a declassified good SPL from 2010 is not a good Kabinett in my book. It seems to my, that in 2010 the ripness was insufficient until you get to sugar levels too high for Kabinett proper. Some seem to get excited about the acid levels, and may see my wish for better ripness as a distatse for acidity. To be honest, I'm not an acid freak, esp not for malic acids. For me, a great Kabinett must be aromatic, pricise (good acids), and weigthless. The 2010 Kabinetts to me seem to lack aromatics and weightlessness.

[David M. Bueker]

The Mosel Spätlesen Trocken and Feinherb were inexplicably better than most of the sweeter wines and I also preferred them to the Kabinett wines.

Pfalz brainwashing.

Hello Peter,

Given your criteria, the method of deacidification was important in whether or not a producer had a successful Kabinett vintage. You can lower tartaric acid (weinsäure) but not malic acid (Äpfelsäure) with calcium carbonate, but with a double salt deacidification both levels can be decreased by taking a portion of the wine (or must) and almost completely neutralizing the acidity and then blending back that portion with the original. It is preferable to use doppelsalzentsäuerung before fermentation because aroma esters cannot be properly formed at extreme pH levels. As you can imagine, this presents a huge challenge to the winemaker, because he must make decisions about how much acidity to remove before the wine is finished or tasted. It ends up being winemaking-by-the-numbers which rarely results in interesting wine. For this reason, many winemakers in 2010 deacidified moderately twice using both methods. Cold-stabilization and tartrate precipitation was employed by all that had the capability dropping the value by another gram or two per liter and finally, some producers even chose to reduce malic acid by malolactic fermentation (which is very dangerous for wines with much residual sugar.) Some of these wines were successful, some not and for me, the ones that were tended to be bigger –Spätlesen for example.

As for the aroma; (to oversimplify) the pH of the finished wine also has a lot to do with how aromatic it is, but there are other factors at play here too including fermentation temperature, yeast selection, and of course which monoterpenes are present and in what concentration. The Pfälzer Kabinett wines that I’ve liked have been classically aromatic, but we generally had less malic-acid in the south than the cooler regions and ironically because of the yield-reducing hailstorms last summer, many producers in the Südpfalz had riper grapes to begin with.

A lot of producers also dealt with high acidity by body-building with longer lees-contact and by bottling later –again, probably at odds with your criteria for elegant, weightless Kabinett.
So while there were, in my opinion, some very good Kabinett wines produced, I don’t know if it could be called a ‘Good Kabinett Vintage.’

All of that said, the very best collection I've tasted from 2010 is from A. Christmann and none of the wines were deacidified from QbA to GG.

Prost!
Bill

The Mosel Spätlesen Trocken and Feinherb were inexplicably better than most of the sweeter wines and I also preferred them to the Kabinett wines.

Pfalz brainwashing.

Believe me, I had the same thought myself ! I'll be interested to see what you think after the TT tasting.

Bill, thanks for that interesting post. My understanding is that Keller, Dönnhoff, and Schaefer de-acidified the musts, not he wines. I think they hit the spot quite well. Vollenweider did not de-acidify any of his sweet wines.

Peter

Question for Bill,
Cold stabilization is usually performed after alcoholic fermentation. Could a cold stabilization technique (keeping the juice at a low temperature for a given length of time and possible “seeding it”) be applied to the juice prior to the start of alcoholic fermentation?

Salute

Question for Bill,
Cold stabilization is usually performed after alcoholic fermentation. Could a cold stabilization technique (keeping the juice at a low temperature for a given length of time and possible “seeding it”) be applied to the juice prior to the start of alcoholic fermentation?

Salute

Victor,

It certainly does happen. Though it is more common for large industrial producers to buy finished wine for blending into their frosted bottles, sometimes must is chilled before being sent off to a Kellerei, but spontaneous fermentation would be avoided by selection of a cultured yeast strain in that case. Here in Germany and in northern Italy, there is a strong following of Federweißer, which is wine that is drunk while in the process of fermentation. This is most popular in the fall during harvest of course (kind of a Beaujolais Nouveau-like phenom served with onion tarts), but it is possible to buy Federweißer in the summer (though I wouldn’t recommend it.) This wine would certainly have to be chilled until near-shipment.

Also, having a lower pH through alcoholic fermentation is a good way of keeping undesirable bacteria at bay, and cold stabilizing early would also mean yet another racking to remove precipitates (which is somewhat at odds with reductive winemaking.)

For a variety of reasons I would think that most wineries would want to get the alcoholic fermentation started as soon as possible especially if going spontaneous.

Peter,

It doesn't surprise me that those guys deacidified only the must. I would think that the adjustments would have been very minor for the better estates.

Cheers,
Bill

Peter,

I will be more informed in a few days after I taste a bunch of the wines. But bear in mind that my sample will be skewed, as the producers' offerings will already have been culled for sub-par wines by their very capable importer.

Hi David -

I'll definitely look forward to reading your notes, and finding out what you think will be worth buying from the 2010 vintage. Honestly, with a lot of very good 2008s and 2009s still readily available, I may not buy that many 2010s, but will still want to try some of the standouts and overachievers.

Yes, looking forward to reports on 2010 Germans... The Theise catalog caught my attention and especially his write-up on... Merkelbach. If 2010 is anywhere near as good as their 2001s, I'll be all over it.