Two dry Rieslings

As I get older I find am shying away from the young sweet examples of German Riesling and more and more preferring dry Riesling on its own or with food. Maybe my teeth are so bad now after 13 years in the wine biz that the sugar just goes past my enamel and straight for the nerve. Could be . . .but that is the hypochondriac side of me speaking. Whatever it is, I must admit, this is an unexpected shift in my palate that is actually providing me great academic interest. Sweet German Riesling was one of the only sweet things I liked. Not a desert or candy fan as I overdosed in my youth. But sweet Riesling I have been drinking on a regular basis since around 1998 and now, 13 years later, my palate has shifted again. I am lying a little in that I love a nice juicy halbtrocken or feinherb but more than not I am rockin the trockens.


At home recently, had the 2006 Donnhoff "Grey Slate" which is a Kabinett Trocken and I am not sure of the vineyard sources. This has always been a lovely drink but this bottle was by far the best one yet. 2006 is an exceptional vintage for dry wines in the Nahe. The wines have an opulence like no other dry German Rieslings I have ever tasted, yet have brilliant acidity, clarity and focus. Laser beam wine. This has a nose of mineral, blue-raspberry and lime with also some lovely hints of that grey slate. The palate is wonderfully opulent and rich and almost has the mouthfeel of a Muscadet from a ripe vintage like 2005. I say this because of the complete lack of fruit and intense velvety mineral tones that remind me of Muscadet. Yes there is lime but I am up in the air as classifying that as a wine fruit. I mean who eats limes? I mean really eats them, not just sucks on them every now and then. The last girl I dated liked to suck on limes. Go figure. The acidity counteracted the fat from the minerality and texture and delivered a precise package of rocks, slate, lime zest and seashell minerality. Exceptional wine and kept developing throughout the night until by the end of the evening there was an intense mineral stink that rose from the glass. I have one more bottle which I will drink in around three years. As an aside that is my friend Matt Cohen tasting at Donnhoff in August 2008. I am taking the pic and it looks like he is in mid swish.


Last night at Craftsteak had.....yup.....you guessed it . . .had a . . .drumroll please . . .German Riesling with steak. Screw wine and food pairing while you can find a gem like the 2005 Heymann-Lowenstein Uhlen Roth Lay on the insanely overpriced list for a song. This wine was wonderful and I would say it is entering its window of drinkability. The nose was sensational with lovely dried pit fruits, some apple and an incredibly symphony of wet earth. I could not keep from smelling this wine as the nose became primal in its earthiness and minerality. Like someone was digging a hole deeper and deeper into a rocky pat of the earth while it was raining. Just the freshness of it is what made it so pungent aromatically. The palate was rich with dried fruits and great acidity considering the wealth of fruit. The structure was there and the integration was remarkable. Long, juicy finish that finishes extremely mineral. Maybe a bit broad on the palate as compared to the Donnhoff but the nose more than made up for it. The pic is the Winninger Rottgen from Heymann-Lowenstein's website.