WTN: Blind German Riesling '05-'06 (Müller, Haag, Leitz...)

Tonight we had a lovely single blind tasting of '05 and '06 German Rieslings, with one fully blind joker put in to mislead us. Though I liked quite a number of them, I haven't been as keen on the '05s as most of the Riesling lovers, but this time I started to see more bones underneath the fat - maybe I will buy a few more to age. The '06s still puzzle me. Sometimes they hit all the right spots, sometimes they are just heavy. I'll happily continue my exploration of them...

• 2005 Emrich-Schönleber Monzinger Halenberg Riesling Auslese - Germany, Nahe (6/2/2008)
  Joker: Floral and mineral, lots of ripeness but with some steel under all the fruit; vibrant, sweet, sunny and quite lovely. Long and mineral.
• 2006 Egon Müller Scharzhofberger Riesling Spätlese - Germany, Mosel Saar Ruwer (6/2/2008)
  Very floral and perfumed (like rosewater), verging on tropical with its passionfruit aromas but with an intense scent of wet rocks. Bright and lively and manages to keep a certain elegance despite the huge fruit. Quite sweet for a Spätlese. Very mineral. Very nice.
• 2005 Zilliken (Forstmeister Geltz) Saarburger Rausch Riesling Auslese - Germany, Mosel Saar Ruwer (6/2/2008)
  This seems to show quite a bit of botrytis on first sniff and even some petrol. It becomes very earthy with air and developes lovely, savoury notes of olive. Very plump and sweet but it seems to have plenty of steel and acid underneath all the fruit. Probably excellent, but this was not the right time to open it.
• 2005 Georg Breuer Rüdesheimer Berg Schloßberg Riesling Auslese Goldkapsel - Germany, Rheingau (6/2/2008)
  Knowing that we had a double blind joker in this single blind tasting, I was quite sure this would have been the joker since it smelled more like a Sauternes than a German Riesling. Highly botrytised, a little bit vanillary; very sweet, but with higher acidity than usual with Sauternes. I thought I sensed some oak, but I must have been hallucinating. Weird wine, but thoroughly enjoyable as long as I didn't think of it within the paradigms of German Riesling.
• 2006 Weingut Josef Leitz Rüdesheimer Berg Schloßberg Riesling Spätlese Goldkapsel - Germany, Rheingau (6/2/2008)
  A strongly mineral nose, quite elegant for the year, but showing a very ripe, passionfruit nose. A lighter, less fat, less sweet style than most others tonight, not terribly high in acidity, but it stays together very well and is stunningly mineral. I very much enjoyed this.
• 2005 Ratzenberger Bacharacher Wolfshöhle Riesling Auslese Goldkapsel - Germany, Mittelrhein (6/2/2008)
  A floral, passionfruity style, at first not showing much more than just pure Riesling fruit, but it did gain some mineral complexity with air. Good fruit, fair acidity for the year, but it doesn't seem as expressive as the last bottle I tried. Very nice.
• 2005 Fritz Haag Brauneberger Juffer-Sonnenuhr Riesling Auslese - Germany, Mosel Saar Ruwer (6/2/2008)
  A pure style that smells of crystallised lemon. Sweet but mineral, quite refreshing despite copious amounts of fat that cover the bones. A little bit shy aromatically, but probably will turn out very nice indeed.
• 2006 Fritz Haag Brauneberger Juffer-Sonnenuhr Riesling Auslese - Germany, Mosel Saar Ruwer (6/2/2008)
  A very open and youthful nose of lemon skins and ozone, very floral, cleanly botrytised. Very sweet and quite low in acidity but still has pure fruit and enough structure to be moreish. Mineral finish. I liked it quite a bit.
• 2005 Fritz Haag Brauneberger Juffer-Sonnenuhr Riesling Auslese Goldkapsel - Germany, Mosel Saar Ruwer (6/2/2008)
  Very classical and pure style despite the obvious ripeness: floral, mineral, bright aromatics. It has fair acidity for the year and is refreshing and not heavy - and seemingly not as sweet as the non-GK Auslese. Very nice.
• 2006 Fritz Haag Brauneberger Juffer-Sonnenuhr Riesling Auslese Goldkapsel - Germany, Mosel Saar Ruwer (6/2/2008)
  Very ripe but gladly very mineral also, showing much botrytis. Sweet, heavy and doesn't carry the sugar as well as the '05 GK Auslese. This might turn out very well once the bones come out clearer, but now this was just too heavy.
• 2006 Fritz Haag Brauneberger Juffer-Sonnenuhr Riesling Beerenauslese - Germany, Mosel Saar Ruwer (6/2/2008)
  After the heavy Auslese GK '06 I was happy to find that the BA has quite a bit of elegance and is light on its feet despite the huge sugar levels. The nose had a very delectable, almost Chenin-like character of green pea and clean, not at all overbearing botrytis. Paradoxically creamy yet refreshingly acidic palate, well balanced despite the sweetness. Quite lovely.
• 2006 Fritz Haag Brauneberger Juffer-Sonnenuhr Riesling Trockenbeerenauslese - Germany, Mosel Saar Ruwer (6/2/2008)
  Like the BA, this had a delectable green pea scent to it, clean botrytis - it is actually a rather elegant scent for such a massively sweet wine. Creamy but lively, utterly undeveloped but beautifully balanced. Very nice!
• 2006 Weingut Josef Leitz Rüdesheimer Berg Schloßberg Riesling Beerenauslese - Germany, Rheingau (6/2/2008)
  Very clean, clear and pure scent, very mineral and surprisingly, hardly any botrytis aromas. Pure and transparent despite the great sweetness, well balanced acidity - but again I note surprisingly little botrytis for a BA. But it is a beautiful wine.
• 2005 Weingut Josef Leitz Rüdesheimer Bischofsberg Riesling Trockenbeerenauslese - Germany, Rheingau (6/2/2008)
  This was quite an extreme wine: it smelled so much of botrytis that it practically obliterated all the Riesling aromas! Massively sweet, massively botrytised, massively intense - a bit too much for me.

Posted from CellarTracker

Thanks for the notes! Where did you taste all these lovely wines? Is this the Stockholm presentation by the VDP?

Do you happen to know of the GKs by Fritz Haag were the regular ones (-9-) or the more botrytizes ones (-12-)?

Great notes Otto. Quite a few `06s here now but selection is patchy.

Quite a lineup- thanks for the notes!

Pardon the ignorance, Otto, what do you mean by "joker" in this context?

[David M. Bueker]

Indeed - the Schonleber seems to fit into the lineup ok.

That Leitz TBA needs 30 years.

Where did you taste all these lovely wines? Is this the Stockholm presentation by the VDP?

Do you happen to know of the GKs by Fritz Haag were the regular ones (-9-) or the more botrytizes ones (-12-)?

These were mostly imported by Fine Wine Finland and tasted in Helsinki at Restaurant Carelia. I don't know about the Haag's # but will send an email and ask.

Pardon the ignorance, Otto, what do you mean by "joker" in this context?

+

Indeed - the Schonleber seems to fit into the lineup ok.

That Leitz TBA needs 30 years.

The joker is any double blind wine inserted into a single blind tasting to make things even more difficult. Sometimes, as here, it fits the theme well; sometimes it doesn't (as in the recent Montille tasting where a Rebholz Spätburgunder was mixed up - and didn't stick out like sore thumb!).

-O

Thanks for the explanation, Otto. But there's still something I don't quite get

As I understand it, "single blind" means tasters don't know what they're tasting, but the pourer does, while "double blind" means neither knows. The rationale for "double blind" being that, otherwise, the pourer might communicate subliminally something about what is being served.

If in your tasting, Otto, you say the joker is the only wine served double blind, the pourer will know which is the joker, defeating the purpose of the double blind. Unless I'm missing something, it seems to me they all have to be single, or they all have to be double, but not mixed...

But it is a fun idea that the joker need not be different from the other wines in the theme, as might be expected. Adds another layer of uncertainty and, therefore, fun.

As I understand it, "single blind" means tasters don't know what they're tasting, but the pourer does, while "double blind" means neither knows. The rationale for "double blind" being that, otherwise, the pourer might communicate subliminally something about what is being served.

Oswaldo,

I might not have this exactly right (but if I don't I am sure someone will jump in and offer a correction), but . . .

Unfortunately the wine world decided to import the terms used in experimental methodology without the concomitant meanings. The definitions you refer to are the ones commonly accepted within the scientific community--where the critical consideration is to reveal a causal connection between some treatment and some effect it has on a subject.

The wine world uses the same terms to mean drastically different things. Single-blind means the taster knows what wines are being served during the session, but do not know which is which. Double-blind means that the taster does not know what wines are being served at all. Basically single-blind is multiple choice and double-blind is fill-in-the-blank. Neither of them is concerned with what the pourer knows, as double-blinding is not used in wine tasting (as it is in lab experiments) to eliminate causal confounds.

Basically, no connection between the two meanings. One of those cases where wine tasters would have been wiser to come up with their own terms rather than misleadingly borrow and misuse scientific terminology.

Thank you, Keith, that makes perfect sense, and makes Otto's words make perfect sense.

Keith nailed it, double blind in winespeak isn't the same as in a real controlled experiment. When I said in yesterday's SOBER report wines were served double-blind, I meant the rest of us had no clue, Cathleen knew.
However, sometimes I've done "single blind" (we knew what wines were in lineup) tasting,but with pourer bias removed. We brought our wines, put the wines into identical paper bags, then had a waitress shuffle and number them so no one knew.
Though personally I would use the word "joker" differently. We usually use that to describe a wine that is NOT on theme, but that someone thought might fool (a Littorai PN in a Burg tasting, a Fingers Lake wine in a German Riesling-fest, a dodgy Brunello in a CalCab tasting ) the group.

Though personally I would use the word "joker" differently. We usually use that to describe a wine that is NOT on theme, but that someone thought might fool (a Littorai PN in a Burg tasting, a Fingers Lake wine in a German Riesling-fest, a dodgy Brunello in a CalCab tasting ) the group.

So what should I call this type of blind that we had in this tasting?

Keith, thanks for the explanation - much better than I could ever have done.

-O

Do you happen to know of the GKs by Fritz Haag were the regular ones (-9-) or the more botrytizes ones (-12-)?

I just got mail from the sommelier: the '05 is a #9, but he didn't find any marking on the '06 - so what could that be?

-O