Probstey "Grand Cru"
- Some of the Best Pinot Noirs I've Had from Anywhere in Germany
- Incredibly Hedonistic
- Deep Cherry Fruit with Incredible Detail
- Full & Layered Aromatic Spectrum
- $43.99 for Pinot This Level of Quality Is Unheard of
- 95 Points from Pigott
Village Saulheimer Kalkstein
- Please Do Not Sleep on This Wine (Sick Value Under $25)
- Young Grapes from Grand Cru Sites
- The Power and Balance of the Grand Crus
- 94 Points from Pigott - INSANE QPR
"A handful of producers are making serious wines from this grape (Spätburgunder), but in our
"Even Thörle shines more brightly with Spätburgunder, aka pinot noir; its 2016s are the best to date for the variety there." - Stuart Pigott on the 2016 Thorle Spatburgunders
Stuart is a Brit who's been around for a while and has a big following in Europe and a smaller following here in the States. He's been living in Germany on and off for 25 years and he and I have been tasting the same wineries for a decade or more. He's one of the top German wine critics in the world. His scores and writeups are added to give another perspective.
Thorle is on the Cusp of Superstardom
We all know what happened with Martin Müllen when he got the huge Stephan Reinhardt scores. My wonderful little stash of old Riesling that I was planning to sell over a decade disappeared. And the new stuff is selling out fast. And the same thing is going to happen to the Thörle Brothers. The wines are that great. Elite great.
Imagine if you will if you were a lover of Burgundy in the late 60s and early 70s. The world was basically your oyster. Everyone else in the market was going gaga over the only wine that mattered to them, which was Bordeaux. You stocked up on Raveneau, Roumier, Leroy, Rousseau, Coche-Drury, Dujac, Fourrier... the list goes on. All at ridiculously low prices. And you're still drinking the last of them today and laughing. Well, that opportunity is repeating itself today in Germany. Germany has always had the terroir. It just took a while for the producers to figure out how to make great wine on it. A few dozen of them have and they are there for the picking as few other importers are paying attention.
Here is Christophe Thoerle answering 6 Questions.
The 2016 Vintage
Thörle's 16s are the greatest Pinot Noirs from this young estate I've tasted so far. Monuments to how brilliant 16 was in the Rheinhessen for Pinot Noir. This is like buying Mugneret-Gibourg before they were popular amongst the cool kids. The Thörle's 2016 Grand Cru Pinots are just astonishing. Even better than the stunning 2015s. These are among the best Pinot Noirs I've ever tasted from anywhere in Germany. These 2016s may be the last email before they go on allocation lockdown. They make so little and the quality is off the charts. If 2013 was the breakout vintages for Möbitz and E and M, 2015 was the breakout vintage for Thörle brothers and now 2016 shows they are not resting on their laurels and moving the conversation even more forward. They slayed all the Pinot Noir and made perhaps the most transparent, yet nimble, refined and deep 16s I've tasted yet. These are breathtaking wines not to be missed. I think the 15s (other than the Kalkstein) are closed now. But the 16s are unreal now, just like their Riesling counterparts.
So please read this carefully and order as much Thorle as you want while you can.
We are starting with the first big boy, the 2016 Thörle Probstey Spatburgunder for $43.99 a bottle on the 4-pack. Probstey is one of their two "Grand Cru" sites and drinks well earlier. Probstey is the more windy and is a south facing site with sandy and limestone soil. It's the warmer of the two Grand Cru sites but also has a knack for snappy acids allied with the richness that comes from the warmer site. The 16 is just nuts and is so frigging hedonistic but in the Fassiest way possible with unreal refinement. The nose is heavenly. With deep cherry fruit that is changing between dark and light cherries. So detailed and vivid. Oolong tea, minerals and subtle spices add to the aromatic lightshow. The palate is way better now than the nose. Aromas need a few years to shift into high gear at Thörle I find. Even Stuart says that in his note. Just incredible. So concentrated with perfect tiny berry super high quality fruit. It just explodes and is so detailed. It's the earthiest, sweetest most perfumed Pinot fruit you can imagine. All balanced by perfect lip-smacking acidity. These are the results you get from perfectly healthy, ripe Pinot Noir fruit, which Christophe Thörle so eloquently stated as we tasted this wine. It has an opulent texture like only 16 can bring while remaining mind-numbingly fresh and transparent with elegant and refinement at levels yet before undiscovered. This is a beautiful wine. It can be drunk now but I think will benefit greatly from 5-10 years in the cellar. My notes trail off with...."sick, sick, sick." It is indeed sick.
"Still quite closed on the nose, because this has just been bottled. However, on the palate there's a sensational harmony of fine-grained tannins and perfectly ripe fruit, yet the wine has just 12.5 per cent alcohol. Great, chalky dry finish." - 95 pts Stuart Piggot
Up next I've got a brilliant example of a category of wine that offers such superb value when they are on. Most times they are. That is the Pinot Noir version of a Riesling Spatlese Trocken. Aka Ortsweine/Village wines. Today I've got one that I did not plan to offer but it was so good I had to offer it. The 2016 Thörle Saulheimer Spatburgunder Kalkstein can be had today for $24.99 a bottle on a 4-pack. Back up the truck on this as this is a nutso bargain. I spent nearly 15 minutes on this wine. This is in the same genre as Juwel Spatburgunder/E&M Liason and Ziereisen "Schulen." Insane value Ortsweine that you would think is twice the price. This is from young vines in their two Grand Cru sites of Hölle and Probstey. It has that Grand Cru presence if not quite the finesse and in 2016 it is crazy concentrated and super deep. The nose is wide open with huge thrilling levels of fruit. Big berries and cherries with tons of perfumed intensity. Succulent and so juicy with enormous lift and freshness. Amazingly elegant tannins and perfectly executed ripeness and purity. Terrific inner mouth perfume. You can't believe how inexpensive this wine is vis a vis what it delivers on the palate. It's so concentrated and deep from the brilliance of 2016 yet has sizzling acids and freshness. This will be a legend just as Liason and Juwel were at similar pricepoints. E-mail me about case pricing (or maybe even palette pricing :-). I can go a tiny bit lower. Still though. 94 points, $25????
"This has a ravishing black cherry note with hints of leather and smoke. For a pinot noir in this price category, there's great concentration, polished tannins and a long, complex finish. Drink or hold."
94 pts Stuart Piggot
2016 Thorle Probstey Spatburgunder - $45.99 ($175.96 4-pack) (LIMITED)
2016 Thorle Spatburgunder Kalkstein - $26.99 ($99.96 4-pack) (LIMITED)
No comments:
Post a Comment