- Laser-Like Precision and Purity of Fruit
- Amazing Depth
- Terrific Energy to the Fruit
- Crunchy, Explosive Tiny Berry Fruit
- Very, Very Important German Pinot Noir Producer
2019 Günther Steinmetz Brauneberger Juffer Auslese GK
- 98 Points Piggot
- The Nose: Knocks Your Head Back on First Whiff
- Almost too Intense to Process
- "devastating, peachy intensity" Piggot
- Saffron, Peach Skin, Minerals
- Palate - Epic Levels of 2019 Concentration
- Terrific Tension with the Acidity
- Fruit Concentration Is So Great You Almost Don't Taste the Sweetness
- Amazing Complexity on the Palate
- Saffron, Spice, A Hint of Clean Raisin
- A GK But No Botrytis
- $34.99 Case Pricing (.750 ML)
"What an amazing nose with devastating, peachy intensity and an overtone of saffron. Staggering concentration and colossal acidity give this incredible Mosel Auslese great tension. Patience will be rewarded by this highly structured, enormously complex wine that might live a century! Only a hint of grape sweetness. Drinkable now, but better from 2024." - Stuart Piggot, 98 Points
A Very Important Background on GKs and Noble Rot / Botrytis
OK - some of you will know this but some won't and it's actually very important.
What is a GoldCapsule? A Gold Capsule, or GK, is a category of German dessert wines that is of higher quality. German winemakers used gold capsules to differentiate higher quality because the German government, in its wisdom, didn't want the winemakers to have differing quality levels written on the labels. So the winemakers used different capsules, sometimes, they even had long GoldCapsules for even higher quality. Yes, I know, it's ridiculous.
How Do You Make a GoldCapsule? Back in the pre global warming days, typically, you would typically harvest later and you would get rot on the vines and this fungus called botrytus. Now, opinions vary on botrytis but it definitely adds an additional element to the wine and if you are a purist, you might prefer your sweet wines without it.
2019 and GoldCapsules with No Botrytis So in 2019, you had 2 things going on. 1) low yields and 2) hot temperatures. So you had enough concentration in the grapes to make GoldCapsule wines WITHOUT harvesting too late and getting botrytis. So you have dessert wines of crazy purity and concentration.
These are basically almost miracle dessert wines.
The 2019 Vintage at Steinmetz
Stefan Steinmetz has arrived as the next winemaker you need to care about in Germany in a very significant way. In 2019 he had "the Leap", as we call it at Fass Selections. He made wines better than in any other vintage before but not only that - he has leveled up. He is now a top 10 German wine producer for Riesling. Dry and sweet. Stuart Piggot, who has been tasting German wines longer than almost any critic working and has written enormously respected books about the topic has now anointed him. Stuart dropped absolutely bananas scores for Stefan in 2019 which Stefan says is the best vintage since 2001. Piggot dropped a 100 for the 2019 Neumagener Rosengartchen Von Den Terrassen Riesling. To get 100 points from any critic is a massive massive accomplishment. Relax! We don't have that wine today. We only have a 98 Point Auslese GK. More on that soon.
The Style
So he gets these crazy vineyards and makes stunning Riesling. What are they are like?
What's the style here?
- They are as refined as Markus Molitor.
- But they have maybe even greater acid spines.
- They are as delicate and fine as Riesling can be.
- They have structure to last decades
- The biggest takeaway I have is that they are unbelievable young. In 20-25 minutes they just are drinking so well.
- They will age also 30 years. Or you can drink them tomorrow. And they will drink well young. It's the key.
The Wine
I am thrilled to be selling the 2019 Gunther Steinmetz Brauneberger Juffer Auslese GoldCapsule for $36.99 per bottle (750 ML) and $34.99 on a 12 bottle case. I'm actually going to start with Stuart's
note. He's got an incredible palate and, let's face it, the guy can write. You can tell that they invented the English language in England from his prose.
note. He's got an incredible palate and, let's face it, the guy can write. You can tell that they invented the English language in England from his prose.
"What an amazing nose with devastating, peachy intensity and an overtone of saffron. Staggering concentration and colossal acidity give this incredible Mosel Auslese great tension. Patience will be rewarded by this highly structured, enormously complex wine that might live a century! Only a hint of grape sweetness. Drinkable now, but better from 2024." Stuart Piggot, 98 Points
Basically - this wine is almost the apogee of Mosel sweet wines. Yes, you get the ethereal Mosel fruit. Ye
s you get Moselian minerality. Yes, you get that laser-like knife edge acidity and balance. But in 2019, you get this over the top, insane concentration. And you are getting all of this from a winemaker whose very style is all about precision. So you are getting some of the b
est fruit in an Auslese in the past couple of decades combined with elite level clarity and balance in the same wine.
As noted in the titles, this wine knocks your head back when you first sniff it. It's almost too much to process. The intensity of that peach fruit combined with the acidity is literally piercing. Then you get that intermingled saffron. It's almost psychotic.
The palate is on even another level. That dense, concentrated 2019 peach fruit is stunning. You know when you have a perfectly ripe peach and the sugar/acid balance is so intense it almost hurts your teeth? That's what this is. And then you get that complexity. Spice. Saffron. That crashing Moselian fine dust minerality. And the balance is all there. On the edge of a freshly sharpened knife. You still get a hint of raisin but it' a clean raisin because there is no botrytis.
This wine will age for all intents and purposes, forever. Buy it as a birth wine for your kids of grandkids. It doesn't get much better than this.
2019 Gunther Steinmetz Brauneberger Juffer Auslese GK - $38.99 ($147.96 4-Pack, $419.88 12 bottle Case {$34.99!})
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