Last night drank a nice pair of Rieslings. Started of with the 2002 Breuer Nonnenberg. George Breuer is one of my favorite producers and his Nonnenberg is an absolutely riveting bottle of wine and should be on anybody's short list of outstanding German dry wines. From a monopole site in the Rheingau this wine continues to impress me. Nonnenberg is a wine that benefits tremendously with age. This had a bit of age on it which is evident by the slightly darkening yellow color commonly found in older Riesling. The nose needed some coaxing but once it got going it was glorious. Yellow fruits, white flowers, minerals, sea salt, peach skin and spricot skin on the very complex nose. Great breadth of aromas. It was very pretty and not in your face. Delicate would be the word I was looking for. Not to take anything away from the nose, the palate was the real story of this wine. It had an outrageous texture and perfect balance. The palate was like the silkiest bean curd you can imagine. Concentrated as it was delicate this wine truly showed the heights great dry Riesling from a noble site. The finish echoed with lemon, slight dried confectionary sugar, chamomile and salty minerals. What a wine. Still a baby but definetly showing some slight secondary but I will not open my remaining bottles for at least 5-10 years. 
After that had a little fun and opened up the 2005 Von Hovel Oberemeller Hutte Auslese. This is another monopole and what a monopole it is. I always find wines from Hutte to be incredibly opulent with rich lemony flavors and always tons of ripe tropical fruit. In this example there is a wonderful saline minerality along with a rich yet delicate mouthfeel and incredibly clean botrytis. Long crunchy finish with piqaunt acidity. Seriously concentrated wine with an amazing structure. Lots of baby fat here so it is still a blast to drink before it closes up. Delicate and forceful at the same time. As I have continued to say in 2005 the regular Auslesen are the bargains of the vintage and is the first vintage where I am trying to cellar more Auslese than Spatlese.
Dude - is the photo of "Nonnenberg" really Rudesheimer Berg Schlossberg?
ReplyDeleteI think not. But nice try dood . . .
ReplyDeleteI'm going into the archives for this note. Glad to have read your thoughts on this wine, I recently posted on it and wow - I was fuckin' blown away. Have had Breuer's more basic stuff up until last week when I had this '02 Nonnengarten and the '04 Berg Schlossberg. Looks like our notes read sort of similarly.
ReplyDeleteOh yeah, so I may be in New York for a a bit at some point during the last week in October. We should link up.