Just a Wegeler guy

Wegeler 1999 Wehlener Sonnenuhr Riesling Spätlese 02 001 (Mosel-Saar-Ruwer) – Thai riesling (lemongrass, Makrut lime leaf, palm sugar), with the texture but not the taste of coconut cream. Very intense, very sweet, but as certain omissions in the list of Thai referents might suggest, somewhat acid-deficient. It’s not flabby, but there’s no respite for its thickness nor its sugar. Is it ready? Well, it’s not falling apart, but I’m dubious that more time is going to lead to anything measurably better. (11/11)

Parched NBA commissioners

Sybille Kuntz 2003 Riesling Dreistern “Goldkapsel” (Mosel-Saar-Ruwer) – No AP number. Dry, it says, but a lot of people will mistake the richness and texture of this wine for residual sugar. It’s 2003, for sure, but handled well and with plenty of structure…not, perhaps, what would be there in a more traditional year, but it’s no layabout floozy. At the moment, in fact, it’s all bones and rock, finishing as long as a desert horizon. Age should bring some interesting quirks. (10/11)

Haag the limelight

Fritz Haag 2002 Brauneberger Juffer Riesling Kabinett 3 03 (Mosel-Saar-Ruwer) – As muted and diffident as my entire stock of this wine has been. Others have reported better results, so I have to feel that my batch was damaged in some fashion. Gauzy minerality, bubblegum, powdered cream, and generalized disappointment abound. (10/11)

Canis gold

Vollenweider 2006 Wolfer Goldgrube Riesling Spätlese 02 07 (Mosel-Saar-Ruwer) – So is this actually a beerenauslese? (NB: it’s not, but there’s no question it’s an auslese in other guise). Massively, powerfully, brain-poundingly sweet…and yet, with the sharp, crystalline acidity that few wines other than German riesling manage to achieve at this level of sucrosity. I’d say the flavors run towards Terminator apple and Full Metal Jacket Meyer lemon, but really it’s just very, very sweet at the moment. One for the cellar. (9/11)

Gaden of Erden

JJ Christoffel 2001 Erdener Treppchen Riesling Spätlese 006 02 (Mosel-Saar-Ruwer) – Pearly. Maybe I should use that, rather than my usual descriptor creamy, for the state of maturing riesling, because it more accurately reflects the way in which the various sorts of minerality are retained. This is still pretty sprightly, with a clarity that’s akin to drinking the glass itself rather than what’s in it, but there’s a little here for lovers of riesling past its callow youth. Just a little, though. (9/11)

Michelin silver medal

Studert-Prüm 2003 Wehlener Sonnenuhr Riesling Auslese ** 11 04 (Mosel-Saar-Ruwer) – 375 ml, cork soaked through, and a wine that may or may not be showing signs of that damage. I’ve had it intact before (cork-wise; I can’t speak for the wine), and it was good-but-only then. This seems pretty much the same. Maybe a slight whiff of caramel to start, but that blows off rather abruptly. What’s left is creamy, but it’s not the cream of riesling maturity, it’s the cream of sucrosity. This is a very sweet wine. (I initially wrote “powerfully” there, but there’s nothing powerful about this wine; it’s girthy without much force or pressure, and to its detriment. There’s peach, orange/vanillasicle, a very long finish, some brushes with the faintest ground iron. Maybe in time? A lot of time? Perhaps. I’m dubious, though. (8/11)

Travis

Bollig-Lehnert 2002 Trittenheimer Apotheke Riesling Auslese *** 14 04 (Mosel-Saar-Ruwer) – 375 ml. Sweet industrial apple, apricot, lime leaf. The beginnings of cream come to a screeching halt far earlier in the finish than one expect. A disappointment. (7/11)

Bollig-Lehnert 2002 Trittenheimer Apotheke Riesling Auslese *** 14 04 (Mosel-Saar-Ruwer) – 375 ml. Peach, ultra-ripe apple cream, aluminum, none of them saved by a late spike of gooseberry and a hint of Makrut lime. Very simple, straightforward, basic. Young, yes, but it’s already showing signs of quick maturity, and I don’t see much upside. Though maybe I’m wrong.(8/11)

Vending baroque

Selbach-Oster 2001 Zeltinger Sonnenuhr Riesling Spätlese 022 02 (Mosel-Saar-Ruwer) – Dust, salt, red cherry, makrut lime flesh. Concentrated and, while not delicious at the moment, certainly dancing around that adjective. (5/11)

Says what?

Simon 2007 Ayler Kupp Riesling Kabinett 2 08 (Mosel-Saar-Ruwer) – Really not good at all, in ways that I’m inclined to attribute to damage somewhere in its past. Or it could be… (7/11)

Simon 2007 Ayler Kupp Riesling Kabinett 2 08 (Mosel-Saar-Ruwer) – Corked. (9/11)

Haag und das

Fritz Haag 2002 Brauneberger Juffer Riesling Kabinett 3 03 (Mosel-Saar-Ruwer) – Hints of Rainier cherry and yellow plum very quickly give way to anonymous sweetness, general lightness, and a slight “push” to the structure that, ultimately, amounts to pretty much nothing. Getting cotton candy-ish in the finish, which for me is never a good sign from German riesling. Good thing I only have, oh, eight or nine more bottles… *sigh* (4/11)

Brown meat patty

Fritz Haag 2002 Brauneberger Juffer Riesling Kabinett 0 03 (Mosel-Saar-Ruwer) – Ever more cylindrical and starting to dust up, which is a quality I like to find in riesling as it ages. A little more confident than the last bottle, which suggests gradual emergence into a more interesting stage. (8/10)

Do you Graach?

JJ Prüm 1999 Graacher Himmelreich Riesling Spätlese 17 00 (Mosel-Saar-Ruwer) – Lightly sulfured. For Prüm. Very light petroleum aromas in the process of being supplanted (or is it the other way around? maybe) with Pink Lady apples and…are those peaches? Peach nectar, more like. Still kinda clunky at this stage. Ah, the wait for Prüm… (5/10)

Fischer king

Dr. Fischer 2007 Ockfener Bockstein Riesling Spätlese 3 08 (Mosel-Saar-Ruwer) – Shy for the first twelve hours or so, then blossoming into timidity and overt restraint. Sounds exciting, I know. A lot of dust eventually leads to a petrol-tinged lemongrass creaminess and canned peaches (more about the can than the fruit), but this just isn’t very interesting. (3/10)

Haag und Dazs

Fritz Haag 2002 Brauneberger Juffer Riesling Kabinett 3 03 (Mosel-Saar-Ruwer) – Dryish lemongrass, dry apple skin, and spritz. Sulfurous. Still too young for true enjoyment. (1/10)

Longuich lessons

Schmitt-Wagner 2001 Longuicher Maximiner Herrenberg Riesling Kabinett 15 02 (Mosel-Saar-Ruwer) – Difficult. Muted, somewhat sulfurous, and probably too young. Nonetheless, what’s perceptible is moderately enticing. A grayed-out minerality suffuses everything, but there’s a leafy, almost lemongrass-like aromatic component (albeit brief), then apple skin, and finally some walnut that’s not only aromatic, but textural as the wine drifts off into an uncertain finish. I wonder how much more time this will require, or if that number is imaginary. (1/10)

Maximin overdrive

Schmitt-Wagner 2001 Longuicher Maximiner Herrenberg Riesling Auslese 18 02 (Mosel-Saar-Ruwer) – Despite obvious power and intensity, this suffers from the same seemingly sulfurous muting as the same vineyard’s kabinett tasted at the same time. Everything here is dialed up – fruit, acidity, palate impact – and that helps. In terms of a terroir signature, this wine performs largely as the kabinett does, with the exception of an expansion of the realm of apple-derived characteristics. I have more hope for a future here than I do for the kabinett, but I don’t lack hope for either. (1/10)

Lieder of the pack

von Schubert’schen 1983 Maximin Grünhauser Herrenberg Riesling Auslese 31 84 (Mosel-Saar-Ruwer) – Old but still vibrant. Jacketed in copper and other, brassier metals, with a palate that recalls a youth of orangesicle sorbet and strawberry. An impressive life must have been led to arrive at this point, and the complexities and suddenly-remembered tales keep one coming back again and again. (12/09)

Wehl, en, let's take a look

Studert-Prüm 2006 Wehlener Sonnenuhr Riesling Spätlese 2 07 (Mosel-Saar-Ruwer) – Sweet flowers made of metal and cold sunshine, but it’s the steel that’s growing ever more dominant in this wine, which is insistent and powerful despite the apparent lightness of its carriage. It’s still difficult for me to accept that this is the weight one must expect from a Spätlese, but I guess that’s the modern paradigm. Drink very soon, or let it age. (8/09)

Osterizer

Selbach-Oster 2007 Zeltinger Sonnenuhr Riesling Kabinett 027 08 (Mosel-Saar-Ruwer) – From 375 ml, and a gift from a friend who thought I’d either gotten it wrong or had an off bottle in a previous note. At first, there’s an almost milky aroma and texture to the wine, as if cidered steel had been squeezed from a Teutonic cow. Then there’s warming, which brings out both intensity and a surprisingly bit of cream for such a primary wine (guess that cow hasn’t left the vineyard). There’s just a bit of plastic to the finish, and it definitely detracts, but otherwise this is powerful, intense, and balanced…albeit miles from anything that would have been thought of as a kabinett in years gone by. (7/09)

Black Knight Rider

Egon Müller 2007 Scharzhof Riesling 1 08 (Mosel-Saar-Ruwer) – An odd mix of youth and maturity in its fresh, pretty fruit and its creamy texture and quartzy minerality. Perhaps a bit too ephemeral; the wine’s there, and then it’s gone, and the desire for a second bottle never really arises. Perhaps the sin is overt inoffensiveness. (5/09)