Dry Riesling tasting
Posted: Tue Jan 02, 2018 6:01 pm
Final club tasting was a dry riesling blind tasting. Here is the lineup:
'13 Weingut Alzinger Steinertal Smaragd, Wachau, Germany
'13 Dopff Au Moulin Schoenenbourg de Riquewihr, Alsace, France(Grand Cru awarded in 1985)
'12 Weingut Keller Rheinhessen Renaissance, Kirchspiel, Germany
'13 Weingut Hermann Donnhoff Schlossbockelheimer, Nahe, Germany
'13 Weingut Wittmann, Kirchspiel, Germany (Biodynamic viticulture)
'10 Tantalus Old Vines Riesling, BC, Canada (Northernmost vineyard in this listing)
'12 Cave Spring Beamsville Bench, Ont, Canada
'06 Grosset Polish Hill, Clare, Australia (from my wine fridge, stored horizontally)
Here some observations:
(1) It was almost impossible to visually separate the wines. All exhibited pale gold look, considering that Grosset was a lot older than the rest.
(2) All wines had the usual lemon, lemon flower, apple nose, but the European exhibited strong tropical nose of passion fruit. The Canadian provided some pineapple and guava touch. The Grosset added kero notes that helped my wife and I to identify it quite readily.
(3) Tasting provided sheer enjoyment if you like the style. Grosset and Tantalus showed definite mineral touches, but the older German gave some hint as well. The European showed very high degree of elegance. One wondered what these wines would exhibit, say, six years from now! That would be my recommendation to the club.
(4) Then came the definition of dry. Tantalus has around 8 g/L of sugar. Dopff has 4.9. Some Clare material can be down to less than 2 g/L. Personally, except for Grosset, all the wines should be considered as off-dry, their nose of tropical fruit, especially passion fruit, made them sweeter!
Lovely quality for all wines!
Cheers.
'13 Weingut Alzinger Steinertal Smaragd, Wachau, Germany
'13 Dopff Au Moulin Schoenenbourg de Riquewihr, Alsace, France(Grand Cru awarded in 1985)
'12 Weingut Keller Rheinhessen Renaissance, Kirchspiel, Germany
'13 Weingut Hermann Donnhoff Schlossbockelheimer, Nahe, Germany
'13 Weingut Wittmann, Kirchspiel, Germany (Biodynamic viticulture)
'10 Tantalus Old Vines Riesling, BC, Canada (Northernmost vineyard in this listing)
'12 Cave Spring Beamsville Bench, Ont, Canada
'06 Grosset Polish Hill, Clare, Australia (from my wine fridge, stored horizontally)
Here some observations:
(1) It was almost impossible to visually separate the wines. All exhibited pale gold look, considering that Grosset was a lot older than the rest.
(2) All wines had the usual lemon, lemon flower, apple nose, but the European exhibited strong tropical nose of passion fruit. The Canadian provided some pineapple and guava touch. The Grosset added kero notes that helped my wife and I to identify it quite readily.
(3) Tasting provided sheer enjoyment if you like the style. Grosset and Tantalus showed definite mineral touches, but the older German gave some hint as well. The European showed very high degree of elegance. One wondered what these wines would exhibit, say, six years from now! That would be my recommendation to the club.
(4) Then came the definition of dry. Tantalus has around 8 g/L of sugar. Dopff has 4.9. Some Clare material can be down to less than 2 g/L. Personally, except for Grosset, all the wines should be considered as off-dry, their nose of tropical fruit, especially passion fruit, made them sweeter!
Lovely quality for all wines!
Cheers.
