2001 Dr. Loosen Ürziger Würzgarten Riesling Spätlese Goldkapsel Auction - Germany, Mosel Saar Ruwer (5/23/2020)
Light honey color. My previous note still applies: nose of butterscotch, honey, beeswax and hibiscus. Palate is rich, but crisp with apples, clover honey, toasted caramel. Finish with a lovely tartness of underripe pineapple. But the end of this bottle was left lingering for 3 hours. With more air time and warming to room temperature, the luscious and lingering finish appeared. Turns out this wine needs air to show its depth and class. Different style than Prum, but no less sexy and stunning. (96 pts.)
Posted from CellarTracker
Love seeing more ‘01 notes being posted, thanks!
Sounds like you had a great bottle!
All 6 of mine were shot from heat damage.
An early internet retailer that had a lot of heat damaged wines.
I had my last bottle of 1997 a couple of weeks ago. It was stunning. At one time, I was a friend of the local Loosen importer before Loosen decided to handle US importing on its own. Rather than return small odds-and-ends quantities, Erni told him just to keep those. There were a few bottles each of 1997, 1998, 1999, and 2001 auction Spat. I passed on 1999. Cost was $18/bottle. I still have 2 bottles of 2001.
It’s not just the US. 2001 has been pretty disastrous at Loosen. Indeed that whole period.
Really? Within the past 6 months, I’ve had 2 bottles of '01 Erdener Treppchen Spat. and one 01 Graacher Himmelreich ‘Stablay’ Spat. One bottle of Erdener was a touch past it and the second bottle as well as the Graach were just fine with plenty of life ahead. I think there were real problems in '02 and I didn’t buy a single bottle from that vintage. FYI, the Bay Area importer for 01s was Old Vine Imports, based out of SF (then Petaluma).
Had a 375 of the '99 version of this a few months back and it was really nice and in a good drinking spot right now. I still have a mag left for some future event. Loosen is now a bit on the sweet side for my palate, but this '99 still had good balancing acid and was nicely complex.
Well at least you brought it up, not me. I completely agree, as I have 2001 Loosen kabinett, spatlese and auslese that all died an early death.
I guess I got lucky being able to source my Loosen '01s from Old Vine. Those wines were shipped directly to Old Vine. There was no intermediary in the US between the two.
European stock is crap too.
If you had good bottles you were lucky, it wasn’t provenance.
I only have 7 bottles left of '01s divided between the 3 wines I mentioned. I paid wholesale price so there wasn’t a lot invested to begin with.