A good friend from Uni was over for a simple dinner of smoked salmon pasta (simple but IMHO always good). While making the food we finished off the Clerc Milon 2004 that I've been drinking over the past couple days. It's turned much too oaky/chocolatey, though the first two days it was quite lovely, fresh, acidic, very Claretty yet a masculine style of Pauillac.
Then we opened Alois Lageder's Pinot Grigio 2005 which was nice and mineral, yet had all the heavy fruit I expect from the grape. It was full bodied yet deceptively light and had a lovely mineral aftertaste. I wouldn't mind more acidity to it (even though it did stay fresh) - a wine full of contradictions. Nice!
I also opened up Robert Weil's Kiedrich Gräfenberg (errrrrr, why don't they print the -er after Kiedrich????) Riesling Spätlese 2003 with some cheeses. This is a wine that I was very fond of a couple years ago when it came to Alko. It seemed to defy the hot year and was fresh and complex and had plenty of grip. Then came a couple bottles in tastings that made me regret buying three bottles of it (more than two bottles is very rare for me) - they seemed much too advanced and soft. Since it has been over a year since I've last tried this, I wanted to try it again to see if I should get rid of the other two bottles.
I'm not going to get rid of them. This was pretty decent. The nose was surely rather ripe with its tropical and passionfruit notes, but it was still very pure Riesling. The palate isn't the most acidic wine but it had enough grip to keep it in balance. The 8% abv makes it light yet the fruit makes it fullbodied and the acidic (yes there is still enough of it) makes it again light. Thought it doesn't have the lightfooted elegance of a ballet-dancer, it is a very fair Riesling and I'm glad to have two more of them.
-Otto-