I will tell you from empirical data that you can sell a lot of German dry wine right here in America. Anecdotally, I have seen an increasing number of bottlings of dry German wines (mostly non Terry Thiese) at the stores where I shop (Chambers, Crush, etc.) over the past decade or so.
Of course, that does not mean that Terry Thiese should focus on that as a part of his business model any more than it means that he should enter the market for wines from the Canary Islands. No business can be all things to all people and if Mr. Thiese chooses to focus on sweet wines in his German portfolio than that is his decision. Rudi Wiest, Louis Dressner and others have excellent portfolios of German dry wines so American consumers (who are willing to ship wines) will not go thirsty.
Rudi Wiest has invested tons of money trying to expand the market for German Dry wines in the US with his German Dry Wine Tours and aggressive sales efforts. My guess is that he has the highest market share of these wines as a result. I would assume that Mr. Thiese has been very successful with Grower Champagne. Businesses have to focus to succeed.
I recall Terry has/had been using the term ‘raped into dryness’ in his catalog for what seems like a decade now. Changing the phrase to ‘invasive species’ is probably more sensitive to most readers.
Take a look at Terry’s catalog in depth. He offers a large number of dry wines. If they are not on shelves it is because the shops are not ordering them, not because they were not offered.
I’ve been a fan of reading Terry’s yearly volumes for over a decade now. He pulls the trigger on the dry Rieslings when he really likes them. I think what gets wedged in his craw is when a winery feels forced to make something Trocken to bend to convention, when even a Halbtrocken would have been more flavorful. I brought it up more to note that it wasn’t a recent stance Terry chose to adopt, but an opinion he has been behind for many years now.
BTW: I’m the Matt with 2 t’s. Or Matty in some circles. We’re hard to keep straight.
EDIT: Good chance you weren’t referring to me anyway. My bad.
No accounting for taste, but I have liked the several bottles of Porphyr I’ve drunk over the years, particularly a bunch of 2004 I got at closeout pricing
Hmm. The 08 and 09 Wagner-Stempel dry wines were what really changed my mind about the potential of dry German wines. I still love German wines with RS, but I no longer subscribe to the notion that one should assume the dry wines are somehow guilty before proven innocent.
However, I really have to disagree with Mat Cohen’s statement above that we would somehow be better off with fewer 2nd tier wineries producing Kabineett or Spatlese with RS. That frankly seems short-sighted to me.
While the initial Rudi dry offerings were undoubtedly expensive, there are now more affordable wines.
I said that it would not be that great a loss to lose half or so of the 50 or so 2nd tier producers, not that we would be better off. Losing choice is never a good thing for a consumer.
I’m a regular buyer and fan of dry German wines, and in no way view them as guilty before tasting. I actually relish the opportunity to taste dry German wines, but have a hard time paying for some of the reputed top bottlings (e.g. Rebholz, Keller, Schafer-Frohlich…) when I can get dry Riesling from Alzinger, Trimbach (CFE), Schloss Gobelsburg, etc that is at the same level for much less money. Even Nikolaihof’s Steiner Hund is cheaper than many of the touted GGs.
As for losing the 2nd tier - I would challenge anyone to name the 50 producers that would not be missed. I have no idea where Mat is going, and so will not hazard a guess, but the “2nd tier” makes some fabulous wines. Heck, nased on some comments above, it might very well be that Mat considers Selbach-Oster to be 2nd tier. I cannot imagine a world without Selbach-Oster wines.
Fwiw, I sell Rudi GGs, $29-69.
For their quality on the world stage, reasonable tariffs IMHO.
Don’t you regularly buy Donnhoff GGs, David? About as pricey as it gets…
it has perhaps on occasion run away with him just a little; I remember him once trying to tell me that Alan Holdsworth was the greatest improvising musician alive—at a juncture when not only Sonny Rollins but also Max Roach was still on the planet…
I would suggest that for an importer who has contributed in such an extraordinary way to the contemporary scene in the USA (in three different facets, even) there should be a certain level of tolerance extended—as long as his professed attitudes do not lean toward racism and his behaviour remains free of child-abuse.
whereas Terry is in the business of selling, David—whom I have known even longer and know far better—has a different sort of gift for the language, and a propensity to utilise it as telescope/microscope/engine, but in way that seeks a more abstract sort of clarity than Terry’s English does, even as it seeks to assert its own ideas and prevail in arguments.
Stuart I have met a couple times, but not for a while; I like the way he writes—seems currently to be adjusting his style a bit to meet the currents of social media—but he has devoted himself to the subject in a way that few have, and has been in more constant contact with the culture in question and its evolution than the other partners to the discussion.
on occasions when I’ve been a retail buyer, Terry was ever willing to bring in as many of the drier styles as I wanted to take a reasonable position on—even when that meant, like with Strub or Neckerauer once upon a time—a separate bottling before the Süßreserve went in…
these questions of winegrowing/winemaking will always and unfailingly be addressed within the parameters of the parent-culture—and these Germans, like us in the US, do not lack the usual admixture of implacable blockheads…
“it won’t really be a disaster for everyone other than a small cadre of sweet Riesling lovers.”
David - I consider you the leader of the cadre
And I’d agree that the second tier folk make some fabulous wines. But unless you are drinking over 70 bottles a year of sweet German wine, you’ll have quite a selection with 10 Tier 1 and 20 Tier 2 in any given year. As we all know many producers makes multiple wines in each pradikat. There are a ton of wines to drink. Not that many people will really notice if the Tier 2 Producer numbers drop in aggregate.
We’ve done blind tastings of Dry German vs Austrian. Steiner Hund is profoundly gorgeous. Some of Keller’s and Schafer-Frohlich’s offerings I think have more force in the palate. Bockenauer Felseneck is simply like drinking an unyielding wall of flavor. If you haven’t had it, spend the rent money and try it. G-Max is the same (the one vintage I had - not suggesting you drop $350 to try that bottling).
As for the prices, I think that the wines are worth it, which isn’t to say that I would rather pay less for top Tier GG’s. The wines are actually quite affordable in Germany. If you don’t have a religious devotion to the 3 tier system and are willing to buy from a gray marketer or direct retailer/importer, the prices are way lower (I’ve seen under $50 for a top tier GG).
I’ve been tasting and drinking the Schafer-Frohlich dry wines since the 2002 vintage. You know, those spatlese trocken things that were so confusing to the marketplace, and even reasonably priced?
Wall of flavor? Force in the palate? If that is what you prize then we have zero common ground for discussion. Nuance, clarity and elegance are the virtues I seek in dry Riesling. Unyielding is frankly a distasteful idea, and having drunk the Felseneck I am not at all sure what it was you drank.
Schafer-Frohlich has a range of GGs. The Felseneck is the most powerful imho. Some years are, of course, more powerful than others and the wines do close so depending on when you drink them, they are more or less powerful .
