A piss poor bottle of Spatburgunder or how I mess up sometimes as a wine buyer

Nobody's perfect. Least of all me. At Chambers Street Wines my goal is to have the best Spatburgunder program in the country because I believe that is where the future lies. I have tasted so many good ones but the best ones are difficult to attain as they have a fanatical following in Germany and American consumers are not ready to pay $35 and up for Pinot Noir from Germany. Yes it used to be pretty poor a while ago. Take this quote . . . .

""... the German Pinot noir (is) a grotesque and ghastly wine that tastes akin to a defective, sweet, faded, diluted red Burgundy from an incompetent producer. Need I say more?"

Guess who said that? I will give you clue - the most influential wine critic in the world.

But much progress has been made due to advances in winemaking, climactic change, excellent vineyard management and the thirst for the German public for red wine be it Pinot Noir or . . . .gulp . . . Dornfelder.

The main areas where it excels are in certain areas of Franconia with Paul Furst of Burgstadt being the quaity leader, the Pfalz with people like Rebholz and Knipser, and the Baden with people like Heger, Huber, Schneider, Wassmer and Salwey.

There are also plantings in the Assmanhausen area of the Rheingau, particularly by August Kesseler but those wines and the Rheingau Spatburgunder style have never really done it for me. I have tasted a good Kunstler here and there but Riesling rules the Rheingau.

Well anyway onto my poor decision as a wine buyer. A salesman, whose name I will leave out to protect him and his family, came into to taste me on the 2004 Furst Lowenstein Hallgartener Schonell Spatburgunder Spatlese Trocken. It had a little spritz but developed after around fifteen minutes into a nice wine. Good fruit if a bit candied and some nice spice and earth. I bought it and sold it and then finally took one of the last bottles home and boy this wine was a mess. Hot, candied, bitter and acrid. Tannins out of wack and just so damn hot. Uggggh. Well the lesson here is you cannot win them all and this was one of my few mistakes as a wine buyer although I am sure there were many more. Please chime in if you think there was a wine I bought for CSW that you think sucks. All opinions are welcome.