WTN: Thoughts on an 06 Donnhoff Felsenberg Auslese

I attended a dinner last night featuring a huge lineup of Californian 'Rhone Rangers' - pretty much the entire 06 Saxum lineup, a bunch of older Saxums, Pax, Alban, Konsgaard, Carlisle, etc. The event was lots of fun, but the wines became tiring with some time (there were about 20 reds scheduled, and close to 2 bottles/person planned) and my palate felt exhausted a few hours in.

Then we got to dessert. A magnum of the 06 Donnhoff Schlossbockelheimer Felsenberg Auslese.

There's something truly amazing about a wine that you can drink like this. When you're past a point where you're saying "alright, enough wine already", you can just take a sniff from the glass and suddenly feel rejuvenated with your tastebuds/senses coming back to life - and after a few lineups of high density reds, this feels incredibly cleansing and refreshing.

This is a stunning wine. The nose is thrilling, loaded with intense floral notes, tropical fruits, citrus, peach, honey and spices with a stony mineral character underneath. Spectacular on the palate with bright red berries, pineapple, apple, citrus and mineral notes, tons of acidity balancing the sweetness and keeping this very light on its feet, and a very long finish. Even though I'd been attempting to take smaller pours/spit more on the previous flights, I ended up taking a second pour of this and sucking down every drop. Absolutely delicious, and like most other Donnhoffs I've had, left me just going 'wow' at the end of each sip.

Let's see, getting bludgeoned for two hours with big CA syrah and then having magical Donnhoff. I can't think of a better scenario for showing off the glory and drinkability of fine German riesling

[David M. Bueker]

The '06 Felsenberg is a lovely wine (though I prefer the Dellchen), but Rahsaan is right. That's a lot of punishment for a little pleasure.

Great story. Around here, we seem to have a lot of these glutton fests with young monster Cali wines and while I still attend to hang with friends, I will only try a few wines. I think our last Pinot event had about 80-100 wines and I think I tried 10 ... and my palate was still blown. I do love the jokers that post notes on 50 wines of this style

Trying Rieslings at these types of events increased my interest in them a great deal and my German collection seems to have quadrupled ... even though my wife won't drink them. I don't think I have seen the 06 Felsenberg Auslese at my local store.

Cheers,

Jason

I can't think of a better scenario for showing off the glory and drinkability of fine German riesling

I can. Less Syrah, more Riesling!