- 2008 Dönnhoff Dellchen Riesling Großes Gewächs - Germany, Nahe (1/13/2022)
Second bottle pulled after the first was badly corked. This is much more what I was expecting, an early maturity dry Riesling with years of life ahead of it. Dellchen is never really about fruit, but more a textural wine, sculpted from rock. Going on fourteen years from the vintage, this is just starting to show the bones that connect Rieslings from France, Germany and Austria. There’s still some fruit, but it’s a secondary element, as it has been since release. Instead it’s an onslaught of minerals, a rockslide as wine. Beyond the stone there is a degree of creaminess emerging on the palate, and promise of even greater complexity and harmony to come as the structural and decorative elements harmonize into a finished portrait. I am glad I opened this, to glimpse what it has become and can become, but sad that it took two bottle to see that picture.
In summary…screw you cork!