Harmonic convergence

Every now and then all the aspects of the universe fall into place and you get a night like last night. I have a modest income but I make it a priority to have 5-10 profound wine experiences every year. As I get older I become more picky about every aspect of the event. The who, what, where, when and how all have become just as important as the actual wines. I don't like putting the wine on a pedestal and worshipping it, nor do I like ignoring the wine and just chatting with disinterested people. A proper balance has to be struck. I don't want to deal with an overzealous sommelier and I do not want anybody but me opening my precious bottles of rare juice. You know how those old corks can be. I want multiple glasses to compare and contrast if there will be more than one special bottle. Call me a pompous pretentious wine geek, but I know what I want when an event like this takes place. I do not have the luxury to drink '47 Cheval or '45 Romanee Conti whenever I want, so when the special bottles come out it better be damn near perfect. Well thank goodness there is a small minority of wine lovers out there who understand this. I was lucky to have two of them join me last night at Tia Pol who look like they have spiffed up their website.

I love Tia Pol. They serve authentic tapas like you would get in Spain with fantastic flavor authenticity and also, as I have recently discovered, an affinity towards German Riesling. We camped out at the bar and they let us enjoy our night. We had glasses, corkscrews, access to the chill bucket and everybody was happy. Of course we shared some of our vinous delights with the staff there but as the night progressed I kept thinking it should be this easy. Wine, food, friends and an attentive but not overbearing staff. But anyway onto the vino. The centerpieces of the evening were two bottles of German Riesling with impeccable provenance. The first bottle was the 1971 JJ Prum Wehlener Sonnenuhr Auslese and this was astonishing wine. Perfection in a bottle. Ethereal and graceful with perfectly mature Mosel character. The complexity was mindboggling. The harmony and balance were something to behold. Caramel, slate, baked apples and a garden in full bloom on the nose. The palate easily was the best on any old Mosel wine I have ever had. It was light as a feather but had great sap and intensity. This was almost totally dry too at this point in its evolution. Like spider silk on the palate. I don't break out the spider silk often but this was an apt descriptor for this wine. A great wine and a new benchmark for me when it comes to mature Mosel Riesling. Thanks JW.

The next wine was the 1998 Donnhoff Niederhauser Hermannshohle Spatlese Goldkap (Auction Bottling) which was stunning wine albeit a bit young. I just had the regular Hermannshohle from '98 and this wine was much much better. I can confidently say that this is the most refined wine in all of Germany. It has such grace and precision and also is ethereally light. The flavors were all red fruits, stone fruit flesh and concentrated citrus. The minerality took a while to come out but once it did it was assertive. The concentration on this wine was astounding and exploded in the mid palate and aldo had the classic Donnhoff dissolve on the finish. Needs much more time as this showed much younger than the regular non-acution NHS bottling. I'll never know as I drank my only bottle and have no regrets I did.

A great night of harmonic convergence.