Belated (mostly short) notes on the third of four 2005 German Riesling release tastings I attended last year, dating back to September 24th, 2006. Held at Boucherville in Zürich. Wines presented here not in the order tasted, but alphabetical. For simplicity’s sake these remain in the old, blurrier “adjectival” rating system some found more acceptable (cf. postscript if necessary).
Clemens Busch Riesling Spätlese (feinherb) Fass 32 2003
A style as if back from the forties. 43-44 g/l residual sugar. Lightly petrolly, herbs, acacia flower, long, not too fruity. Some old-vininess, freshness but also a light bitterness to the surface tannin. Has character, almost a bit Alsatian actually. Rating: Excellent
Clemens Busch Riesling QbA “vom Rotschiefer” 2005
Red berry and apple, soft leafy herbs, off-dry, medium-plus body, medium length. Rating: Very good(!)
Clemens Busch Riesling Spätlese (feinherb) Fahrlay-Terrassen 2002
Huge diesel and petrol nose, but fragile structure, a bit washed-out fruit, just medium-plus concentration, weird and rather rubbery on the palate although not bad, medium length. Rating: Very good (at best)?
Clemens Busch Riesling Spätlese (feinherb) Falkenlay 2004
Fermented 18 months, bottled six weeks before this tasting. Soft stone dust, balm mint and darker herbs, touch of pine forest floor, combines freshness with opulence and slightly warm 13% alcohol. The 10 g/l residual sugar barely show at all. Quite palate-staining. Best enjoyed with food. Rating: About excellent
Clemens Busch Riesling Spätlese Pündericher Marienburg 2005
Quite high alcohol for a residually-sweet Spätlese. Thoroughly and very, very evenly ripe, if less exotic than a 2003. This does not taste like a wine from a cool region at all. Aromatic and ripe acids, a little blackcurrant, ripe and round apple, a tiny bit loose on both nose and palate. Impressive but not easy to judge. Rating: Very good plus
Clemens Busch Riesling Auslese Weissenberg 2005
A medium-plus weight, white blossoms, viscosity, smooth, some blackcurrant, nicely candied. Baffling Côte-Rôtie-like top notes (of the Viognier kind!). Rating: Very good plus
Clemens Busch Riesling Auslese Falkenlay 2005
Much more vinosity, yellow fruit, density and length. A suggestion of Gergely Tokaj-like green tea. Nicely sweet sultana and a little blackcurrant and cherry on the finish and aftertaste. A huge pleasure to swallow, but grip is not one of its main strengths. Rating: About outstanding
Clemens Busch Riesling Auslese Gold Capsule Pündericher Marienburg 2005
Highly botrytised, with a touch of brown bread, apparently BA material with some “healthy” (non-botrytised) grapes thrown in. Not too exotic, but not too terroir-typical either. But very balanced and harmonious. Rating: About outstanding?
Clemens Busch Riesling Auslese Long Gold Capsule Pündericher Marienburg 2005
Caramel with a touch of rubber, some blackcurrant, cough drop, nice terroir expression, nice mouthfeel, quite palate-staining, lovely oiliness, good medium-bready botrytis, strong slate minerality. The 2005s are a bit more overbearingly sweet than some vintages here, but then, baby fat usually does not hurt matters in the long run. Rating: Outstanding
Clemens Busch Riesling Beerenauslese Pündericher Marienburg 2005
Stonier slate minerality, more blueberry, dense, sweet, quite viscous, extremely harmonious and round especially given the concentration, a touch of earthiness to the bready botrytis, clean, not too heavy at all, candied, ripely appley, less passion-fruity-fresh or showing TBA-like freshness than the wonderful 2001, lovely creamy mouthfeel. Rating: Outstanding plus?
Emrich-Schönleber Riesling Spätlese Monzinger Halenberg 2005
Fresh white blossoms and grass. Quite spicy and palate-staining, if yet grassier and tannic-green on the mid-palate and finish. Rating: Very good
Emrich-Schönleber Riesling Auslese Monzinger Halenberg 2005
Macerated apple and apple blossom, pansy and blackcurrant, good minerality of bitter flintstone. A bit spiky acidity. Heterogeneous ripeness seems to be the problem here. Rating: Very good plus?
Emrich-Schönleber Riesling Beerenauslese Monzinger Frühlingsplätzchen 2005
Quite fresh and flowery, blackcurrant, clean and pure, minty-round, good subtlety and length. Smooth, a bit candied, not too soft. Rating: About outstanding
Gunderloch Riesling Grosses Gewächs (trocken) Nackenheim Rothenberg 2005
Dry, slatey, grey pepper, more bite, almost a bit brandy-like grapefruit, a bit short on the finish. The alcohol integration is a problem, the intensity without excess fat a plus. Rating: Very good?
Gunderloch Riesling Auslese*** (feinherb) Nackenheim Rothenberg 2000
A bit evolved for its tender age, although not over the hill. Rubbery-petrolly diesel, some medicinal blackcurrant to prominent marzipan, quite intense, if again with noticeable bite to the alcohol. Rubbery aftertaste. Rating: Very good
One has to like bone-dry German Riesling (I prefer the so-called “harmoniously dry” ones with almost unnoticeable residual sugar and less alcohol, à la Van Volxem), and indeed, I talked to several people who do. Curiously enough, none of them ever tasted any of the top Alsatian or Austrian dry whites.
Gunderloch Riesling Spätlese Nackenheim Rothenberg 2005
70g/l residual sugar already for a SPL. Nicely fat and round. Soft rubberiness to grassy-blackcurranty peach, rubbery aftertaste. Very good(!)
Gunderloch Riesling Auslese Nackenheim Rothenberg 2005
More precision and grip to fresher apple with a suggestion of grapefruit, some blackcurrant. Even so, could not help thinking of earlier versions such as e.g. the 1996. Rating: Excellent (plus?)
Gunderloch Riesling Trockenbeerenauslese Nackenheim Rothenberg 2004
Barely changed really, but found this a fraction less convincing than in May. That I no longer like the style since everything is uniformly fermented with cultured yeasts and thus tastes uniform is not a secret. Viscous on the pour, a bit rubbery-bready botrytis, strawberry top note to gluey-buttery dandelion, almost Tokaj Eszencia-like dried apricot, but heavy fruit, not the greatest acidity, length or retro-olfaction. Some black tea on the aftertaste. Sizeable it is, no doubt about that. But when I think of the almost light-on-its-feet terroir expression of e.g. the 1996 version... Rating: Excellent plus
Reinhold Haart Riesling Kabinett Piesporter Goldtröpfchen 2005
Nice, lightly apple-cidery fruit and acidity, medium-dark minerality, fair enough body, good length. Ultimately a bit simple, especially given it is not a particularly cheap Kabinett. Rating: Very good
Reinhold Haart Riesling Spätlese Piesporter Goldtröpfchen 2005
Sweeter and a bit denser, more blackcurrant superripeness, almost Auslese-like, good body, longer. Rating: Very good!
Reinhold Haart Riesling Auslese Piesporter Goldtröpfchen 2005
Livelier, more precise yet more candied, too. More herbs, more tannic on the surface, retains some CO2. Lightly macerated apple aftertaste. These Haarts are all a bit warming with alcohol in this vintage, noticeable as soon as one allows a wine to warm up in the glass a little. Rating: About excellent
Reinhold Haart Riesling Auslese Piesporter Goldtröpfchen 2000
Rubbery smoke, spring flowers, dandelion and grass, evolving a bit quickly in the glass, but good density for a 2000. It is mainly the quality of acidity that reveals the weaker vintage. Rating: Very good(!)
Joh. Jos. Prüm Riesling Spätlese Graacher Himmelreich 2005
Thai basil, a faint cat aroma as of Sauvignon Blanc, soft blackcurrant cough drop superripeness. Nice, round sweetness, even a touch oily. Just faintly earthy. Medium body and length. Rating: Very good(!)
Joh. Jos. Prüm Riesling Spätlese Wehlener Sonnenuhr 2005
Lightly yeasty spring flowers, minerally, a bit stony-earthy this year, round but not too soft, lovely soft bitter note, harmonious, quite long. Well-balanced, should age harmoniously. Rating: Excellent plus?
Joh. Jos. Prüm Riesling Auslese Graacher Himmelreich 2005
Nicely blackcurranty, grassy herbs, apple, but mainly lychee with a top note of radish. Rating: Excellent! (plus?)
Joh. Jos. Prüm Riesling Auslese Wehlener Sonnenuhr 2005
More viscosity, spring flowers and especially herbs. Medium-plus length, but leaves behind (much?) more of an aftertaste than the Himmelreich Auslese. Rating: About outstanding?
Joh. Jos. Prüm Riesling Auslese Gold Capsule Wehlener Sonnenuhr 2005
Softer nose, tighter palate impression. Just a bit sweeter and more concentrated, but also more minerally, showing a tiny bit more cut than the standard Auslese. A bit tea-like and spicier spring flowers. Retains a touch of coffee-scented and –flavoured residual yeast. Rating: About outstanding
Van Volxem Riesling Alte Reben 2005
Has density, an apple peel bitter note and grapefruit, a touch of sultana, mineral dust, nicely dry, fair length. Could be fruitier. Rating: Very good(!)
Van Volxem Riesling Wiltinger Braunfels 2005
Fruitier, flowery, basil, violet, nicely dense, very minerally, nice body, more alcohol but also more viscosity, longer. Rating: Very good!
Van Volxem Riesling Wiltinger Kupp 2005
Spring herbs, less concentrated, off-dry with its 15-16 g/l residual sugar, a bit loose, a bit watery on the finish. Rating: About very good?
Van Volxem Riesling Wiltinger Braunfels "Volz" 2005
Spicier, more high-toned fruit, more complexity on the palate, longer, more depth on the aftertaste. Rating: Excellent
Rainer and I retasted this at the end of the tasting from another bottle. Intense dark slate, little fruit, smoky, quite palate-staining. Rating: About outstanding?
Van Volxem Riesling Scharzhofberger Pergentsknopp 2005
Riper, even faintly blackcurranty, less concentrated than the Alte Reben and Braunfels also, a bit botrytised, shorter, a relative disappointment. Rating: About very good only?
Van Volxem Riesling Alte Reben Wiltinger Gottesfuss 2005
More intense nose, more grip, less fruit and viscosity than 2001 and 2003, but the expression is nice. Very harmonious, quite long, impressively slatey aftertaste. Drier than usual, the 12.5% alcohol does not integrate quite as well. Could use more stuffing this year. Rating: Outstanding
Van Volxem Riesling Kanzemer Altenberg 2005
One-third of the wines here are ungrafted (only). More subtle slate nose, apple, some sultana. Nicely but not super-concentrated. Harmonious. Medium length. Could not help thinking more should be possible from this great site. Rating: Excellent only
Van Volxem Riesling Auslese Scharzhofberger 2005
Lovely sultana, light apple and blackcurrant nose. Lovely harmony and sweetness, but little minerality. But pretty and the finest of the sweet versions so far. Fair enough length. Rating: About excellent
Van Volxem Riesling Auslese Gold Capsule Scharzhofberger 2005
Bready-minerally nose, currants and raisins, nicely fresh, virtually free from oxidation, dense, best on the mid-palate, the finish is nicely candied, the aftertaste also nice, but still, the sweet versions here are no competition for Egon Müller’s. Except that they are already rather expensive. Rating: About outstanding
Greetings from Switzerland, David.
P.S.
For those who have problems interpreting my "adjectival scoring", the numerical correspondences are as follows:
79 and below = Not good (i.e. no need to figure out exactly)
80 – 84 = Good (same as 16 and over in the European 20-point system)
85 – 89 = Very good (same as 17 and over; I sometimes use Excellent to indicate 88 – 89, or almost-outstanding)
90 – 94 = Outstanding (same as 18 and over)
95 – 99 = Great (or Classic, same as 19 and over; I sometimes use Near-Perfect to indicate a 98 – 99 score)
100 = Perfect (20/20)
Note I will rarely buy wine below my own Excellent rating (that's where wine really starts standing out for individuality from the mass of technically impeccably-made wines) except for an occasional and there truly exceptional QPR (I must insist any wine in the Very Good category with me is serious stuff, way above average wine, that I still wouldn't buy because I've got to somehow limit my wine buying). But if a wine is costly, it had better be at least outstanding!