Older Auslese Trocken- I guess I don't dislike GGs as much as I thought!

I found a bottle of 1993 Louis Guntrum Oppenheimer Auslese Trocken in the back of my cellar that was purchased by my dad in the 90s. It came in a 500ml bottle with a non-traditional label. My experience with Guntrum has typically been crappy riesling bottled in blue glass that I’ve seen on the bottom shelf of my local wine shop’s riesling aisle. I pulled the cork on the first bottle in an unopened 6 pack tonight not knowing what to expect.

Immediately after pulling the cork, petrol wafted from the glass. The palate was hot initially without much fruit showing through. There were secondary characteristics and an appropriate level of oxidation for a wine of this age. Color was golden. At 15 minutes in the glass, it came alive and improved over the next 90 minutes. The nose gave peach cobbler, eucalyptus/spearmint, some anise, and a touch of coconut. The palate gave way to more peaches, yellow fruit, secondary notes of light brioche and subtle vanilla. The acidity was round and soft and brought balance overall. Carried weight but without being coating. Overall, a wonderful wine with depth that I expect from great white burgundy but have never seen in dry riesling.

I am all about RS in my riesling and I avoid GG and other dry riesling as I find that the acidity in the dry wines to be shrill. I have found riesling shows best in its sweeter incarnations as the wines lack balance without the RS to support the core fruit…Nothing new here and I know there are a good number of people that share this view.

With that said, this wine caught me completely off guard. Never thought I’d say it, but I may have to lay down some GG.

Just FWIW: this is not a pure Riesling, but a cuvee of 3 varieties, Riesling with (most probably) Pinot blanc and Pinot gris (maybe Gewürtztraminer instead, they have it in the vineyards).

The question of dry or off-dry is one depending on personal taste, producer and for which opportunity to drink it.
The GGs on the top-level belong to the greatest white wines in the world - and they usually don´t have a much higher acidity these days than White Burgundies - but on the other hand there are no off-dry Burgundies neener

By the way: Guntrum is nowadays a good but not top producer, and decades ago the quality was a bit more variable …

More sweet…but they do exist -

Some of the greatest white wines are Auslese or Spatlese Trocken.

The Macon is certainly dry (otherwise it may not be called Macon), although obviously made from some botrytized grapes (whirch leads to higher alc.) -
The 2nd (L´Effronté =naughty, cheeky) has no Appellation (due to the RS) - although made by a produrcer from Burgundy.

I don’t know about the “Botrytis” cuvée of Thevenet, but his Viré Clessé “Levroutée” as well as “Levroutée” Viré-Clessés of other producers like Rene Michel are off-dry.

The Cuvee Botrytisee is sweet.

Just did some googling
http://www.winealchemy.co.uk/wa_chosenmiscreview.php?id=76

"Because sweet Botrytised Chardonnay is almost entirely confined to Bongran (and just one or two others like Guillemot-Michel) those wines have troubled the INAO authorities for years as there simply is no Appellation that accommodates the style. The wines are therefore labelled with the humble description Mâcon-Villages and for years the authorities have dithered and made rulings against them based on the fact that the wines are not typical of the region. If there was a Vin de Pays here no doubt that would be applied. "

Sweet (moelleux) and semi-sweet (demi-sec) Chardonnay? Can you guys give me a few specific bottle recommendations? Thanks!

Rombauer…

What’s a good vintage? How about the exact full name to search for? Thanks!

I think he was making a funny and referring to this:

Robert- Thanks for the heads up on the cepages. I guess that’s why I got so many non-riesling characteristics on the wine.

As for GGs, after a reasonably comprehensive visit to the Mosel and Nahe last year, I was disappointed with the GG and trocken examples the wine makers were showing. The winemakers would show the dry wines first and I would just get antsy waiting to try the “fruity” wines as they like to call them. I think the GG examples that stood out as balanced were Schaefer Frohlich and perhaps Emrich Schonleber.

The impression I got was that many wine makers felt forced into making dry wines in order to stay competitive in the market as the general wine drinking public tends to shun anything sweet. Most seemed to personally prefer their RS wines and loved that aspect of the German wine tradition.

I have enjoyed two such wines not too long ago, bearing in mind that I really like mature wine, and am very sensitive to sweetness, here are my notes:

1990 Schloss Vollrads Riesling Auslese Weißsilber trocken

11/6/2014 - 93 Points

Burnished 18k gold. Ultrafresh nose of honey, overripe apples, and pineapple. The palate is intense ripe white stone and pommes, showing just off-dry but probably still has some significant sugar, and some botrytis, but is beautifully balanced. The finish is long and tangy, refreshing and slightly alkaline. The whole package is rather tastier than most of the (few) modern GG wines I have had. Enjoyed with sauteed char as well as alone.


1990 Fürst Löwenstein Riesling Auslese Weißsilber trocken

9/20/2014 - 92 Points

Evidently from a period when the estate was run by Schloss Vollrads. Lightly orange 18K gold. Yet another old white wine which really needed some airtime to shine. The first day it was a little cloudy, with no nose and not much palate except citrus tart.

A day later, nice nose of pineapple, overripe tart peach, honey, and flower buds. The palate is full and has a soft texture, tropical and honeyed, very ripe but almost vanishingly sweet, and bracingly mouthwatering. The finish is a powerful extension of the palate, more mineral and just barely short of too tart. A fascinating style, old-fashioned, very ripe riesling vinified to near-dryness and very mature. I don’t have enough experience with contemporary dry German wines to compare.