2019 Willi Schaefer Graacher Domprobst Kabinett (AP 3)
In my view no Mosel grower has been more consistent and consistently outstanding over the 23 years I’ve been cellaring German Pradikat Riesling than the Schaefers. So it’s not surprising that in my cellar, which is more than a quarter Riesling, I have more Schaefer than any other grower. I fully credit Sasha Katsman for hounding me early on in our friendship to steer toward Schaefer, and at some point starting in the mid-oughts, I started filling a Schaefer hole in the cellar and kept piling on, buying both new releases and backfilling.
There also was a seamless generational change as far as I can tell as Christoph took over for Willi. The wines have gone from strength to strength.
The Domprobst Kabinett is always one of the best in Germany. I find it typically takes about 15 years to strut its stuff, the wine always structured to age, but I like to got a sneak peak early on. This bottle opens a bit sponti, limey, and reduced. It wasn’t really until day 4—last night, and after a lot of bottle shaking—that I get a clear picture of how good and perfectly balanced the wine is. The aromatic set strays toward lime curd, green apple, and caraway right now with a tactile sense in the mouth of powdery fairy dust and soothing whipped cream spreading the flavors over the palate. (This may sound hyperbolic but is actually the closest description of sense impression I can give to convey what it was like drinking the wine last night.) The back end of the midpalate is firm and the finish is long, the flavor sense lingering. This should be utterly profound in 12-15 years.
Agree on the exceptional quality and consistency of the Domprobst Kabinett. I had the 2011 and 2012 a few months ago, and while the 2011 was merely excellent (I am no fan of the vintage), the 2012 was just ethereal. It will likely cruise along for another 15 years before it even thinks about starting a slow, dignified decline.
Slight thread drift, but given the price increase in W-S wines over the past three years, I hope that some of that
money is going to Christophe and Andrea, not just distributors and tariffs.
Schaefer was a slight premium to other strong Mosel growers in the Theise stable for a long time. I’m sure David saw that too. But the pricing even with a (deserved) slight uptick the last ten years has never struck me as excessive. I also hope Christoph and Andrea are able to secure good pricing ex-cellar.
If the world finally catches on, pricing could easily go up. It’s not a big domaine, and my understanding is Christoph wants to keep it small. I understand he had a chance to take over some of the Merkelbach plots but declined on that basis.
Has anyone tried to 2018 version of the Domprobst Kabi? I wanted to buy the 2016 but it was sold out and had to re-route to 2018. 2019 hasn’t hit the shelves here yet.
I ordered a case from one of my local retailers back in August, and found out last month that I’d be getting… none. Apparently the local Skurnik rep quit and the new one took too long to get everybody’s orders in.
I wound up with a case each of Dönnhoff Oberhäuser Leistenberg Kabinett and Schloss Gobelsburg GV though, so don’t feel too bad for me.
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