Running into some Rieslings in Berlin restaurants.
One odd find came from a list with lots of natural wines, as the server steered me away from a few other options towards the 2018 W.E. Frank Niersteiner Ölberg Riesling Große Lage. I'll admit I was skeptical, being unfamiliar with the producer, and hearing that it was aged in several different types of barrels, including some new.
However, for 2018 wine from the Rheinhessen, with that kind of treatment, it had lots of focused mineral elegance (likely from the vineyard). There was sufficient power and oily depth (maybe suggestive powers of the name), and it was a very good match with many dishes. Didn’t necessarily scream Riesling because of that oak treatment, so it may have been a good offering for my white Burgundy-loving companion. But also plenty of fresh snap for me to enjoy.
Not something I will chase, but exceeded my skeptical expectations.
Another evening was mild Sichuan food and some old Mosel classics. Not usually how I drink these days. But why not.
The 1998 Loosen Ürziger Würzgarten Spätlese Tradition was a nice taste of the past with crisp almost salty off-dry fruits and that fine-boned structure we don’t get that much in these recent vintages. Maybe I’ll be proven wrong in 25 years, but at that point I won’t care, because this was fun. (Apparently the Tradition bottling spent 36 months in barrel, would be interesting to compare with other APs)
The 2005 Markus Molitor Zeltinger Schlossberg Auslese** was richer and rounder but still nicely aged and well into brisk territory, to work absolutely well with savory dishes, no problem. Funny to see my non-geek friends describe this as "so sweet" and "dessert" territory. But it’s all about context. And the most important thing was that they really enjoyed it.