Spätburgunder 2005

Last friday we tasted blind 10 Spätburgunder of the vintage 2005. The wines were double-decanted 2h before. We were 10 people and we gave no points but ranking. So at the end of the TN you will find the collective ranking of the wine. The place #3 was given to two wines.

Clearly a chastening and disappointing performance of the german Spätburgunder. Either they were too alcoholic and showed to much woood or the were too excerted. And they were to puffed up too. Fair to say that the german winemakers have learned from the mistakes in the past and since a few years they use the wood a bit more carefully.

Intro

(Mosel) 2007 Günther Steinmetz “Pinot Meunier”
Aperitif. Well-made daily business-wine. Impressive QPR for 7 Euro.

1. (Mosel) Horst Löwenstein, Winninger Domgarten, Spätburgunder Auslese tr. Barrique, 13,5%, 17,50€
Present a cool stilistic with roast notes, soft and round with a certain elegance. BUT it lacks length&complexity in the finish. A wine which will impress and quite excerted. Bottom-line, solid wine but nothing special. #5


2. (Baden) Franz Keller, Spätburgunder Selection A, 13,5%, 35€
Bombastic toast notes. Wooden Hammer!!! Powerful acidity and huge coffee flavors. Break apart in the middle. #8



**3. (Pfalz) Pfleger, Edition Curator Spätburgunder Auslese, Pinot Noir **, 14%, 30€
Opulent sweet dense fruit. Extravagant fruit. Chubby and very charming. The finish presents fruit, fruit, fruit. Hedonistic Spätburgunder with adiction potential. #3



4. (Baden) Huber, Wildenstein -R-, 13,5%, 58€
Charming nose. On the palate middle density with roast notes. Clearly oak dominated, but not such heavily in comparison to the Keller Spätburgunder from Baden. A bid moldy and you could say something good and something bad about this wine. Bottom-line, clearly a disappointing performance for the famous “Wildenstein”. In a bad mood right now? Too young?? #7


5. (Franken) Fürst, Centgrafenberg, 13%, 23€
WOTN…clearly the the most interesting wine so far. Impressive structure with wonderful balance&harmony. Cool stilistic and cleary less alcohol than the previous wines. BUT I detected some green notes. . No doubt, Fürst is the master of Spätburgunder. #1

6. (Baden) R&C Schneider, Spätburgunder Parzelle Schönenberg, 13%, 25€
My WOTN. Shows power&presence on the palate. A bit avaricious with the fruit and in general quite puristic. The only Spätburgunder at this tasting which didn´t taste german. GREAT #2

7. (Pfalz) Knipser, Im Großen Garten GG, 14%, 32€
What is this??! Wood, wood, wood with unripe tannins and little substance. And too alcoholic. And it dry out in the finish.
A BBQ-wine nothing more. Horrible. #6



8. (Ahr) Adeneuer, Walporzheimer Gärkammer GG, 14%, 55€
NO…not my cup of Spätburgunder. In all the years I didn´t find access to the Spätburgunder of Adeneuer. Too much wood for me. But other people adore it. #3


9. (Baden) Duijn, Jannin, 13,5%, 27€
Very polished and mega-elegant. Lolly flavors. It´s OK, but nothing special #9

P.S. according to our host the wine hugely improved the next day



10. (Pfalz) Becker, St. Paul (Schweigener Sonnenberg GG), 13,5%, 44€
Where is the structure?! A strange blankness in the finish. I am shocked, I`ve never tasted such a bad Becker Spätburgunder. Maybe the wine suffered from double-decanting? Or bad bottle?? #10





Cheers,
Martin Zwick

Hi Martin,

Were you disappointed with the vintage or the winemaking ?

best wishes

Anthony Hall.

Martin,

many thanks for this insight. But too bad to hear about the bad performance.
I hoped for a TN about a Markus Molitor wine, as I am planning to have one soon. I will report then.

Eric

I have a few of the 03 Furst and it is absolutely a fantastic pinot. Might have helped being a warmer vintage. My only experience with German pinots so far.

Martin, thanks for the report. Do you feel that producers have generally scaled back in the vintages since, and which producers of spatburgunder are most worth a visit? I am especially interested now, as I will be visiting Germany in May and I’m trying to decide on which estates to request appointments for visits. By the way, where are you based? It would be nice to meet if we find ourselves in the same area sometime during my travels.

Cheers,

Alan

Anthony,

mostly of the winemaking, as they used too much wood and too much overripe fruit. Only 3 Spätburgunder impressed me.

Cheers,
Martin

Fürst is really great. I also had the chance to taste some Pinot from the 90s, simply wonderful.

A few months ago we had 2003 Becker “Kammerberg” GG which was stunning. I guess we had an off-bottle or the double-decanting was bad for the wine.

Alan, thanks to climate change the vintages getting better and better. Fritz Becker told me that 2012 is the best ever vintage at the estate. And the yes they scaled back the use of oak or improved the oak management. But a producer like Fürst or Becker were already great in the 90s.

Fürst in the region Franconia
F. Becker in the region Pfalz
Stodden in the region Ahr
Günther Steinmetz in the region Mosel
Huber in the region Baden
R&C Schneider in the region Baden
Keller in the region Rheinhessen

I live in Berlin. BTW, on 24 may I have lunch at 13:00 with Robert Dentice from NY. You´re welcome!

Cheers,
Martin

Martin,

great tasting.

We tried to put togather a tasting of German red wines available in the US at the German Wine Society (Washington DC Chapter). Here is our tasting - worlds away from your tasting as we also had to respect a hard budget constraint, which was on average about $30 per bottle.

Cheers.

Christian

Thanks Martin - very helpful. Alas, I don’t think we will be making it over to Berlin this time, otherwise I would have been pleased to meet both you and Robert. Enjoy!

Alan – Fürst is only about 45 minutes southeast from the Frankfurt airport. There aren’t a lot of other wineries around there, but it’s well worth the trip and it’s a pretty drive. It was one of the most rewarding winery visits I’ve had in 25 years visiting winemakers in Germany, France and Italy. They have an enormous range of reds and whites and the quality is outstanding across the board.

That’s discouraging to hear, Martin.

I remember being disgusted by most of them at a VDP tasting in Berlin in 2000, for the same reasons. I’d heard that winemakers had seen the light sometime in the 2000s and that there were many fewer of these overblown wines. Is the change more recent than 2005?

It’s difficult to explore Spätburgunder here in the U.S. because so few are available (I can’t recall seeing Becker here) and the prices of the better bottlings are very high – well over $50 in most cases. I buy a couple every year and try them in a blind-tasting group, almost always with disappointing results. That’s too bad because I know they can be terrific. A 96 Bercher Burkheim that I’d been given in Frankfurt was lovely when I opened it ~2005, and I’m a big fan of Furst.

John Morris - the closest world class winemaker from Frankfurt International Airport is Kuenstler in Hochheim. You can even go their by S-Bahn from the airport.

John and Christian - thanks for the additional info - will let you know if I’m able to make those visits.

Basically I must confirm Martin’s judgement. Additionally I would say that the wood was often too heavily toasted. As the fruit faded in the meantime there is then only that smell of an empty and cold espresso cup left.
Interesting, that the Quality of the Centgrafenberg was not easy and fast to understand.
For those who read German, here are my tasting notes:

I cracked an 05 Knipser tonight. Just a basic one. Nicely mature fruit, nothing overblown. I don’t have massive experience with top Spatburgunder, but when I tried GGs from some top producers a few years ago I remember thinking they tended towards being too much. The “basic” wines had a lot more going for them.

Basic 05 Knipser evolved nicely with air. Had a mature, velvety texture and bright red fruit flavors. This was more mature than a Burgundy of comparable age. Not thinking of 05 itself as a vintage comparison, but a wine of about 7-8 years age.

2008 was the greatest so-far vintage of German Spätburgunder in the 3-top Pinot Regions (Ahr, Baden, Pfalz). 2005, 2009, 2011 were a little too ripe IMO.

Spatburgunder Auslese? I didn’t even know there was such a thing! I must hunt this down! Great notes!

That wine is dry, just so you know.

I have tasted a few Spätburgunder desert wines though: BA, TBA, Eiswein… Meh. Not so much.