Our Hottest Category Right Now - Burgundian Quality at Half the Price: German Pinot - Grand Cru and Village Wines from A Top 10 Producer in Germany

2015 in the Rheinhessen Was a Historic Vintage
Probstey "Grand Cru"
 - Among the Best Pinot Noirs I've Tasted from Anywhere in Germany
- Incredibly Hedonistic
- Deep Cherry Fruit with Incredible Detail 
- Full & Layered Aromatic Spectrum
- $42.99 for Pinot This Level of Quality Is Unheard of
Village Saulheimer Kalkstein
 - Please Do Not Sleep on This Wine (Sick Value Under $25)
 - Young Grapes from Grand Cru Sites
 - The Power and Balance of the Grand Crus 

Imagine if you will if you were a lover of Burgundy in the late 60s and early 70s. The world was

basically your oyster. Everyone else in the market was going gaga over the only wine that mattered to them, which was Bordeaux. You stocked up on Raveneau, Roumier, Leroy, Rousseau, Coche-Drury, Dujac, Fourrier... the list goes on. All at ridiculously low prices. And you're still drinking  the last of them today and laughing.  Well, that opportunity is repeating itself today in Germany. Germany has always had the terroir.  It just took a while for the producers to figure out how to make great wine on it.  A few dozen of them have and they are there for the picking as few other importers are paying attention.

Right now I'm running with a Dujac/Rousseau/Fourrier/Leroy/Mugneret-Gibourg/Bacheletcadre of German Pinot Noir producers. I can't do a hierarchy but Zieriesen/Walter/Juwel/ Gold/Spater-Veit and today's producer, Thörle all took huge advances in quality this year and just left my jaw on the floor.  I mean I'm lucky to have them all.

Thörle's 15s are the greatest Pinot Noirs from this young estate I've tasted so far. Monuments to how brilliant 15 was in the Rheinhessen for Pinot Noir. This is like buying Mugneret-Gibourg before they were popular amongst the cool kids. The Thörle's 2015 Grand Cru Pinots are just astonishing.  These are among the best Pinot Noirs I've ever tasted from anywhere in Germany.   These 2015s may be the last email before they go on allocation lockdown. They make so little and the quality is off the charts. If 2013 was the breakout vintages for Möbitz and E and M, 2015 is the breakout vintage for Thörle brothers. They slayed all the Pinot Noir and made perhaps the most transparent, yet nimble and powerful 15s I've tasted yet.

Don't Sleep on the Second Wine.  Today I have a new Thörle wine that impressed me so much in 2015 that I had no other choice but to sell it as finding a Pinot Noir this profound at $24.99 is impossible anywhere else except Germany.

But to that later as we are starting with the first big boy, the 2015 Thörle Probstey Spatburgunder for $42.99 a bottle on the 4-pack. Probstey is one of their two "Grand Cru" sites.  Probstey is the more windy and is south facing site with sandy and limestone soil. It's the warmer of the two Grand Cru sites but also has a knack for snappy acids allied with the richness that comes from the warmer site. The 15 is just nuts and is so frigging hedonistic but in the Fassiest way possible. The nose is heavenly. With deep cherry fruit that is changing between dark and light cherries. So detailed and vivid. Oolong tea, minerals and subtle spices add to the aromatic lightshow. The palate is way better now than the nose. Aromas need a few years to shift into high gear at Thörle I find. Just incredible. So concentrated with perfect tiny berry super high quality fruit. It just explodes and is so detailed. It's the earthiest, sweetest most perfumed Pinot fruit you can imagine. All balanced by perfect lip-smacking acidity. These are the results you get from perfectly healthy, ripe Pinot Noir fruit, which Christophe Thörle so eloquently stated as we tasted this wine. It has an opulent texture like only 15 can bring while remaining mind-numbingly fresh and transparent. This is a beautiful wine. It can be drunk now but I think will benefit greatly from 5-10 years in the cellar. My notes trail off with...."sick, sick, sick." It is indeed sick.


Up next I've got a brilliant example of a category of wine that offers such superb value when they are on. Most times they are. That is the Pinot Noir version of a Riesling Spatlese Trocken. Aka Ortsweine/Village wines. Today I've got one that I did not plan to offer but it was so good I had to offer it. The 2015 Thörle Saulheimer Spatburgunder Kalkstein can be had today for $24.99 a bottle on a 4-pack. Back up the truck on this as this is a nutso bargain. I spent nearly 15 minutes on this wine. This is in the same genre as Juwel Spatburgunder/E&M Liason and Ziereisen "Schulen." Insane value Ortsweine that you would think is twice the price. This is from young vines in their two Grand Cru sites of Hölle and Probstey. It has that Grand Cru presence if not quite the finesse. The nose is wide open with huge thrilling levels of fruit. Big berries and cherries with tons of perfumed intensity. Succulent and so juicy with enormous lift and freshness. Amazingly elegant tannins and perfectly executed ripeness and purity. Terrific inner mouth perfume. You can't believe how inexspensive this wine is vis a vis what it delivers on the palate. It's so opulent and rich form the warmth of 2015 yet has sizzling acids and freshness. This will be a legend just as Liason and Juwel were at similar pricepoints. E-mail me about case pricing.

2015 Thörle Probstey Spatburgunder ("GG") - $44.99 ($171.96 4-pack) 

2015 Thörle Saulheimer Spatburgunder Kalkstein - $26.99 

($99.96 4-pack, E-mail me for Case Pricing)