Once again it was a fun afternoon filled with riesling, good cheer, and chatting.
I didn’t get around to everyone, and I couldn’t taste everything with enough attention to form a solid opinion. But, of what I did taste and formed an opinion of...
My favorites were probably Reinhold Haart, von Hövel, Egon Müller, and Karthäuserhof.
Haart’s Goldtropfchens in particular (especially the spätlese) had great fresh acidity, plenty of plump fruit, and were lovely lively balanced versions of what these wines could be.
Von Hövel and Müller obviously spoke much more of the Saar and I absolutely adored the delicate light touch to the Hütte wines. Such bracing acidity, such verve, so fine. Not that there wasn’t plenty of succulence in the Auslese * and the Auslese **.
Müller’s wines are Müller, so they usually taste good. And I’ve seen some negative reports on the 07 Scharzhofberger Spätlese but that was not on display. Instead, the kabinett, auslese, and auslese goldkap all had such zest, grip, and balance. Nice to see the purity and not have to worry about botrytis in the kabinett!
Tyrell started off the session by claiming it was his best ever vintage at Karthäuserhof, which I was prone to disregard as hyperbole. But, the wines were consistently very fine, from the kabinett trocken to the auslese, so precise, so fine, in a linear style that was restrained on the sweetness, generous with the tactile excitement, and anything but boring. Full of life. Nice work.
Of course there was good work from Dönnhoff, Fritz Haag, Willi Haag, JJ Prüm, Zilliken, von Kesselstatt, and von Othegraven.
The Dönnhoff wines always strike me as ethereal, elegant, very light in touch, and beautifully balanced, but I never drink enough to form solid opinions about them. (I’m basically a sucker for Ruwer and Saar acidity).
I actually liked the Willi Haag lineup better than Fritz Haag, as the Fritz Haag wines seemed to be lacking a bit of electricity. But, that could easily have been because the Fritz Haag wines were served too warm as they had all the right components and should be wonderful wines going forward.
Prüm brought a bunch of 04, 05, and 06 Wehlener Sonnenuhr, which were so fine and delicate as always. The 04 wines in particular were a treat and reminded me that the verdant cucumber flavors I first loved in German riesling do still exist. These were also very instructional for a friend who doesn’t drink much German riesling, to show him how delicate the wines can be.
Zilliken wines were excellent and great fun (especially the 03 Saarburger Rausch Auction TBA that I will probably never taste again), but for my own palate I preferred von Hövel for a Saar fix. The Zilliken wines seemed to have more stuffing and were rounder than the Hütte wines (although they were hardly soft, they had plenty of balancing acidity, and they were very fine in their own right). So these were lovely wines that I would be happy to drink, but the particular bracing and refreshing style of the Hüttes grabbed me more. You may think differently.
A nice mix at von Kesselstatt and I had heard their dessert wines were amazing but none were on display. I was not moved by the Josephshöfer wines, but the Scharzhofberger kabinett was an absolute dream. So fine, so fresh, great grip, and sure to be well-priced.
I wasn’t moved by the Ockfener Bockstein wines at von Othegraven but the Kanzem Altenberg wines were a treat, brisk Saar acidity, good balanced fruit. If there weren’t so many wines in the world I would probably consider buying some of these.
Of the rest, I probably didn’t spend enough time with the Lieser wines, as they were very attractive and would be worth drinking, but somehow they didn’t speak to me under these circumstances. Who knows why.
Clemens Busch was interesting because the day before I had tried the 2006 Pündericher Marienburg Spätlese *** trocken and the 2006 vom Roten Schiefer, both of which had been lovely fine firm elegant mineral examples of restrained riesling that I really wanted to purchase. However, here at the VDP the 07 wines were a more exaggerated example of pushing the ripeness as far as it could go and then fermenting to dry. The 07 Spätlese trocken, the 06 Felsterasse, the 07 Spätlese and the 07 Auslese all tasted like they were rich alcoholic super-pradikat wines, clunky, out of balance, and hard to drink. Apparently the 2007 Pündericher Marienburg Spätlese *** trocken and the 2007 vom Roten Schiefer are still fermenting. Maybe they will show a lighter touch when they finish?
Never been a big fan of Loosen, and this tasting did nothing to change that, although of course the 2007 Erdener Prälat Auslese was drinkable.
Probably didn’t spend enough time with Thanisch but I found the lower pradikat wines a bit ho-hum (maybe the Badstube spätlese was drinkable, I don’t know), and then of course the higher level Doctor wines had their charms, if one wants to pay. Which I don’t, for these.
Also could have spent more time with St. Urbans-Hof, as the wines appeared to be very nice, gentle, and worth drinking, although they didn’t speak to me.
Spent a lot of time at Van Volxem, mainly because Roman had so much to say. I thought the 2007 Saar riesling and the 2007 Alte Reben riesling were both lovely and worth drinking, fresh, direct, stylish wines. He didn’t have many higher level wines available because they are still fermenting and the barrel samples of Scharzhofberger and Rotschiefer were tough to evaluate.
All in all, a fun day, I don’t need to ‚evaluate’ the vintage, but there were plenty of wines available for drinking and I was especially glad to see no botrytis in the kabinetts.
