As I get ready to leave for Germany next Wednesday I still need to bust out the rest of my notes from last years odyssey. There still is a decent amount of visits to cover. This might have been the highlight of the trip for me. This visit had it all. The wines were stunning, the vineyards were beautiful and Iphofen is perhaps the most picturesque small town I have ever been. As a result this will be a post heavy on pictures as the images from this part of the trip evoke so many good memories. All in all just a fantastic experience and as luck would have it Wirsching will be my first visit next week. The Bocksbeutels await me with baited breath . . .
2005 Iphofer Kronsberg Muller Thurgau Kabinett Trocken - A nice quaffing wine with rip roaring acidity. A dry, steely ripe wine with a sensation of powdery tannins on the nose if that makes sense. Pure and clean with tremendous fruit. A touch rustic but charming nonetheless.
2005 Iphofer Kronsberg Silvaner Trocken - Nose of steel, minerals and some white flowers. Palate is flowery and ripe with great purity and cleanliness. Fun wine.
2005 Iphofer Kronsberg Silvaner Kabinett Trocken - Pure, steely , sweet greens (think baby arugula) on the high-toned nose. This wine is intense and shows you it is here right when you sip it. Acidity is not shy. Concentrated and complex and drinks way beyond its pradikat level. An incredible Kabinett.
2005 Iphofer Kronsberg Silvaner Spatlese Trocken "S" - This is the best Silvaner I have ever had - - -bar none! Crazy nose of celeriac, rice and exotic clove spices. Fantastic deep vivid minerality. Complex, ripe palate with incredible depth. This is no 1L Silvaner . . .this is serious stuff. The texture is like a pillow but still has firm acid and deep crunchy minerals. Just incredible. Gotta get me some of this.
2005 Iphofer Julius Echter Berg Spatlese Trocken "S" - The nose is like a forest stream with exotic and pure hints of mint. A wonderfully silky and elegant wine but with power in reserve. Supple on the palate and very viscous in the mouth with finesse to burn. This is like a ballerina of a Silvaner. Gotta get me some of this. Where the hell am I gonna store all my Bocksbuetels?
2005 Iphofer Kronsberg Riesling Spatlese Trocken - I have drank alot of bottles of this wine as I think it was the perfect representation of Wirsching in 2005. Maybe not the highest quality wine of the collection but the most classic. An incredibly aromatic nose of baby arugula, white flowers, tarragon, apricot, apple skin, citrus rind and tons of Franconian minerals. Palate had that wonderful Wirsching crunch and amazing opacity. So long. This is Franconia.
2005 Iphofer Kronsberg Schuerebe Kabinett Trocken - Little change of pace here with a nice kinky Schue nose. Sage, tarragon and even some foie gras. Palate is crunchy and long. Lots of grapefruit and cirtrus. Great acidity for Schuerebe in Franconia which is very important for this grape to be successful. Really palate staining finish. Fantastic.
2004 Iphofer Julius Echter Berg Riesling Spatlese Trocken - Very concentrated wine with loads of minerals. Brooding. Dense palate with loads of minerals. Delicous wine but not showing much fruit right now.
2005 Iphofer Kronsberg Schuerebe Spatlese Trocken - Saucy, mineral nose that has loads of juicy ripe Schue goodness. Sage, grapefruit, white asparagus, melon and tons of florality on the nose. Big nose. Ripe and honeyed with incredible concentration. Fun to drink now but this beast needs five years to tame itself.
2005 Iphofer Kronsberg Schuerebe Spatlese Halbtrocken - Nose of pine needles, sweet greens and a saline minerality. Palate is silky and very ripe. Nice wine but it finishes a bit short.
2005 Julius Echter Berg Silvaner Grosses Gewachs - Talk about a freaky wine. Intense nose of flowers, minerals, sugar?, fossils and celeriac. Palate is powerful and elegant at the same time. Very concentrated with a ridiculous spine of acidity. This is painfully young and so large scaled that you MUST cellar this for ten years to avoud bleeding of the gums. I love it!
2005 Julius Echter Berg Riesling Grosses Gewachs - Transcendant nose of citrus oil and sweet greens. Just unreal. Juicy concentrated and very very ripe palate that is almost a solid. Acidity is huge in this wine and there is a paprika/saffron spice thst stays with you for minutes after you swallow this stuff. Haunting.
2005 Iphofer Julius Echter Berg Riesling Auslese - This wine deceives you with its very dry herbal nose. Some apple and apricot and huge Echter Berg minerality. Very concentrated stuff here but it glides along the palate like a cloud and pumps out the fruit on the beautifully detailed finish.
2005 Iphofer Julius Echter Berg Riesling Berenauslese - Just a wow wine. So concentrated and powerful it is not believable. Richness allied with finesse and power. Will live forever.
1967 Iphofer Kronsberg Schuerbe Auslese - One of the guys on the trip happened to have a birthday on the day that we were tasting at Wirsching. I believe he was born in 1968. This was the closest thing they had in the cellar. This was easily one of the most enjoyable bottles of wine I have ever had. Who knew Schuerebe could last this long? The nose was waxey, herbal and exotically kinky at the same time. So complex. Full-bodied, concentrated and super-ripe. Still amazingly youthful for 39 year old Schuerebe. There was a perfect fruit/acid balance that just worked so well in this wine. Just perfect harmony. After the one Heinrich was so kind to share there were only three left in their cellars. I consider myself very lucky to have experienced this magical bottle. It is pictured below with Heinrich Wirsching holding it.
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