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Dönnhoff 08 very briefly

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Peter Ruhrberg

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Dönnhoff 08 very briefly

by Peter Ruhrberg » Tue May 26, 2009 11:34 am

Dönnhoff made very drinkable 08s. The line up is the shortest I recall tasting at Dönnhoff in many years. He made no Auslese! He selected a little bit for botrytis, but decided, sensibly I think, that the vintage was not for Auslese, and he thus concentrated on making the best possible Spätlesen (&Kabinett, Qba). The resulting wines strike me as very successful, esp. for drinking instead of tasting. One of my favorites is Kirschheck, which reminds me of the 98. It goes down so easily, and its hard to keep the glass from the lips. QbA is great fun too, while Leisteberg Kabinett is closer to Spätlese style than I had expected. It was picked rather late. Kupfergrube is good, but cannot compete with the great 07, while also not as much fun as Kirschheck. Brücke is superb. Restrained in RS, very deep minerality. Serious and fun. Hermannshöhle is richer, more complex perhaps, but harder to read at this stage. Dry wines are very good. Felsenberg is only made as dry wine, and very good again. HH and Dellchen are GGs. Both moderate in alcohol, sleek, but highly concenrated and seriously mineral. HH a touch longer and more mineral, Dellchen more fruit driven. Finally, two Eisweine from Brücke: Dezember, and Januar. Dez is a great Eiswein, on a par with the best in recent vintages. Januar is even greater. Incredibly dense. Montag comes to mind for comparison. How can juice from Riesling grapes frozen in the extreme cold of German winter 2008/9 taste like to most wonderful maracuija juice?

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David M. Bueker

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Re: Dönnhoff 08 very briefly

by David M. Bueker » Tue May 26, 2009 11:39 am

So it is true that there is no auslese. Interesting. Glad to hear Kirschheck is so good.
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Re: Dönnhoff 08 very briefly

by Oswaldo Costa » Tue May 26, 2009 12:01 pm

Not everyone may know: maracujá is passion fruit!

Peter, how were the acidities?
"I went on a rigorous diet that eliminated alcohol, fat and sugar. In two weeks, I lost 14 days." Tim Maia, Brazilian singer-songwriter.
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Re: Dönnhoff 08 very briefly

by Peter Ruhrberg » Tue May 26, 2009 12:06 pm

Oswaldo Costa wrote:Not everyone may know: maracujá is passion fruit!

Peter, how were the acidities?


Acids are a factor in 08. I found the QbA trocken a bit rough on the finish. Analytically, the acids in the dry Tonschiefer (from Leistenberg) are appearently identical, but more to my taste. Perhaps better buffered by mineral flavors? For the rest of the wines, acidity was never something I worried about when tasting them. The wines have a balance, and do not need masses of residual sugar in order be palatable...

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Re: Dönnhoff 08 very briefly

by Peter Ruhrberg » Tue May 26, 2009 12:14 pm

David M. Bueker wrote:So it is true that there is no auslese. Interesting. Glad to hear Kirschheck is so good.


There will be very little Auslese from other regions as well. You may have read about Keller's great success with nobly sweet wines in 08. If that view is confirmed, it will remain quite an exception, I think. I personally would be more cautios about those wines. I did taste some unfinished sweet wines at Keller, and there were some worries about herbal/vegetal notes in some of them. Wait and see. I am sure Klaus Peter squeezed as much out of 08 as possible, but he might have had to squeeze a bit too hard? Dönnhoff certainly did not feel he needed to prove that he can make Auslese in any vintage...

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Re: Dönnhoff 08 very briefly

by Salil » Tue May 26, 2009 12:19 pm

Thanks for the report Peter. Glad to hear that Kirschheck and Brucke did so well again; they're probably my two favourite Spatlese from Donnhoff and given what I've heard about '08 being a much more high-acid vintage than some of the recent years, I'm really excited to try those. Just hope the prices are a bit softer than the 07s.
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Re: Dönnhoff 08 very briefly

by David M. Bueker » Tue May 26, 2009 12:30 pm

The reports about Keller are too fanciful to take seriously. I like Miran's passion, but he goes over the edge.
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Re: Dönnhoff 08 very briefly

by Rahsaan » Tue May 26, 2009 10:09 pm

Peter Ruhrberg wrote:The line up is the shortest I recall tasting at Dönnhoff in many years. He made no Auslese! He selected a little bit for botrytis, but decided, sensibly I think, that the vintage was not for Auslese, and he thus concentrated on making the best possible Spätlesen (&Kabinett, Qba).


Sounds good. Do you know how widespread this strategy was among other growers?
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Re: Dönnhoff 08 very briefly

by Peter Ruhrberg » Wed May 27, 2009 3:36 am

Rahsaan wrote:Sounds good. Do you know how widespread this strategy was among other growers?


I don't have an overview at all. Maybe I make it to the MSR presentation, but maybe not. I would think that many will have made a little Auslese if possible. Schaefer made some for the auction. It is very good, and was probably a lot of work for rather little juice...

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Re: Dönnhoff 08 very briefly

by Fredrik L » Wed May 27, 2009 6:05 am

Rahsaan wrote:Sounds good. Do you know how widespread this strategy was among other growers?


I just looked at what is on offer from my primary source of Riesling, and some growers obviously made ausleses , among them Dr Loosen (Hoorah :wink: ), Fritz Haag and Egon Müller, Vollenweider - but only in Kröv - and Christoffel. Zilliken for one has no ausleses on offer, and the BAs and TBAs are few and far between. Weil made it all, of course; why should someone whose kids were born in 2008 be robbed of the possibility to buy Weil TBAs for their offspring? (Wait a minute, that was Pierre Lurton´s reason for producing Yquem in less than stellar years :roll: )

Greetings from Sweden / Fredrik L
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David M. Bueker

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Re: Dönnhoff 08 very briefly

by David M. Bueker » Wed May 27, 2009 7:07 am

In a Grape Radio interview Terry Theise mentioned that there is a small amount of auslese from 2008 (not from Donnhoff, in general). This was echoed in his vintage report here.
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Re: Dönnhoff 08 very briefly

by Rahsaan » Wed May 27, 2009 4:06 pm

Sounds fun and I'm sure we'll all be happy to have something to drink now. And interesting to read Terry's prose as he threads the line of pitching the 'difficult' vintage. Also, I imagine that the growers are happy to have wines in pradikats that they can easily sell, although does anyone know what the yields were like?
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Re: Dönnhoff 08 very briefly

by Fredrik L » Thu May 28, 2009 5:47 am

Rahsaan wrote:Sounds fun and I'm sure we'll all be happy to have something to drink now. And interesting to read Terry's prose as he threads the line of pitching the 'difficult' vintage. Also, I imagine that the growers are happy to have wines in pradikats that they can easily sell, although does anyone know what the yields were like?


OK, here we go, (compared to 2007):

Franken -18% (one of the longest harvest periods in history; Riesling looks good)
Mittelrhein +12% (the most in almost ten years)
Mosel -2% (big differences between individual villages)
Pfalz -5% (still too "normal" to my taste)
Rheingau -4% (albeit 10% more than "normal")
Rheinhessen +2% (=2,9 - 3,0 million hl, which, of course, is way too much...)

I trust you are not interested in the numbers for Saale-Unstrut et al, Rahsaan?

Greetings from Sweden / Fredrik L
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Re: Dönnhoff 08 very briefly

by David M. Bueker » Thu May 28, 2009 6:55 am

Fredrik,

Are those regional numbers which include industrial/co-operative producers. I've never seen published yields for just the VDP estates for example.
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Re: Dönnhoff 08 very briefly

by Fredrik L » Thu May 28, 2009 7:24 am

David M. Bueker wrote:Fredrik,

Are those regional numbers which include industrial/co-operative producers. I've never seen published yields for just the VDP estates for example.


Neither have I, and my figures are indeed total production.

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Re: Dönnhoff 08 very briefly

by David M. Bueker » Thu May 28, 2009 7:39 am

Which explains a lot of the Rheinhessen volume - lots of volume producers there.
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Re: Dönnhoff 08 very briefly

by Rahsaan » Thu May 28, 2009 10:35 am

Fredrik L wrote:Franken -18% (one of the longest harvest periods in history; Riesling looks good)


That is interesting indeed.

For the Mosel, I guess it is more or less the same as 07 but with more 'sellable' pradikats.

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