#rieslingstudy - Age your Kabinetts!

I went through a two week period of drinking a lot of the wines we offered in the source | material Keller Golden Generation pack so I did not post on them.

Some recent bottles of note.


2016 Keller Absterde (Magnum) - Very regal and polished. So much depth and complexity. Definitely better on day two but still a tad closed. This needs some time and is a bit young. Overall I enjoyed it and could not pass it up at well below retail on a restaurant list.


1987 Selbach-Oster Wehlener Sonnenuhr Kabinett - What an incredible wine. I am guessing this might have been a library release. This was extremely fresh and complex. It had the spice notes I love in older Riesling, petrol and lots of energy. I LOVED this wine. And it was a stunning pairing with my wife’s Hanniese Chicken. Overall a great Sunday! My biggest wine regret was not buying Kabinett by the truck load to age…


2009 Lauer Ayler Kupp Stirn Fab 19 - Well well well this has aged beautifully. Much more like an older Auslese than a Feinherb. Opened this for the Flatiron IG Live with Florian. Saved some for the aforementioned Hanniese Chicken and it also went well. I am so happy I have a lot of older Lauers from the Florian period. Also for those newer to German wine and know of Falkenstein, Lauer was originally imported into the U.S. by Mosel Wine Merchant which was run by Lars Carlberg (of Falkenstein) and Dan Melia who left wine long ago and is now a teacher. The Mosel Wine Merchant made up the core of the initial Vom Boden Portfolio and was one of the greatest portfolios every assembled in any region. It is always a nice memory to open a bottle with the MWM back label!


2019 Ulli Stein Blauschiefer Unfiltered Low Sulpher - This is the “natural” wine like version of the straight 2019 Blauschiefer which was one of my favorite wines of 2020. This is cloudy and savory with all the energy and tension of the straight Blauschiefer but it is even more savory and refreshing on the palate in a different way. It is also a great food pairing wine that we enjoyed with a Fish Fry from Dame. Incidentally Dame’s Friday and Saturday Fish Frys are amazing, and I come from the land of the Friday Night Fish Fry. I have my doubts about natural Riesling and most disappoint but not this one! (BTW Ulli Stein was also originally a MWM import!)

Kabinett with 20 or more years of age is a rare treat. It’s too easy to slurp them all down at release. 33 is longer than I might have hoped for with an ‘87. Glad it showed so well.

Given the sheer size of so many modern kabinetts, I have to think that 30 is the low end of potential longevity from a good producer.

Tied for me with not buying Dom. Tempier for about 20 years, but I agree. I have way too much Spatlese and Auslese relative to my Kabinett holdings, and it’s the Kabinetts that I find myself reaching for.

So true on an overweighting on Auslese and above.

I’ve been buying bigger quantities of my favorite kabinetts and and feinherb/halbtrocken in general because I have a hard time keeping my hands off them when young.

Feinherb has become the #1 category for Riesling consumption at Schloss Bueker.

That’s interesting. I understand completely. I remember my first experience with a Feinherb was at Karthäuserhof in 2003. Christoph Tyrell said that he assumed that, as an American, I would have no interest in the dry wines. I said that, no, I was very interested to try them. He was taken aback. What I remember best was the Feinherb, which I loved. In those days, they were nearly impossible to find in the US.

We’ve always said you can never have too much feinherb. I’ve noticed that, probably because of our aversion to sugar, everything skews down the sweetness scale in the Kirschbaum/Read household. Where most people would go for a spatlese, we’re looking kabinett etc. We opened one bottle of auslese last year, and nothing sweeter.

That said, even not having fallen into the too-much-spat/aus-trap, I still wish we had more kabinett.

I still love the noble sweet wines. I just don’t find as many opportunities to open them, and outside of spicy foods and some roasted meat dishes or cheese I find less opportunity to pair them with meals than kabinett or off-dry riesling.

We have taken to opening them on Saturday afternoons while we watch a movie or a game.

Do Kabinett, Spatlese, and Auslese all converge with age (even if on different timelines)?

I agree on Feinherb and such fantastic values as I don’t feel the broader market understands them.

I care more about age than producer and vintage, to be honest. I’d much rather have a $20 90 point kabinett at age 20 than a $50 95 point spatlese when it’s young. So in a sense, I’m lucky that I’m not especially tempted to drink them when are young.

Of course, not every producer, bottling and vintage age the same, but the odds are really pretty high overall.

In some senses yes, in others no. Not trying to be cagey/coy, but I often see high quality, older Rieslings that display a certain core “rieslingness.” I first noticed it at a dinner where we drank a 1990 Trimbach CFE VT and a 1992 Donnhoff Niederhauser Hermannshohle Auslese. At the core they were the same wine. They had this identical base rieslingness that made it clear they were related, if not so close as brothers. I have run into that core a number of times since then, and I have begun to feel that it is always there, just not always showing itself. It’s happened with Kab, Spat and Auslese, as well as with dry German wines. I even noticed it in a young Desire Lines Cole Ranch Riesling that I had a few months ago. It was not so prominent, but in the background it was there, hiding behind the youthful fruit.

That being said, the wines all retained their own distinct character, but just had a core that said “I am riesling.”

Curious about what you mean, Brian. Do you mean converge in terms of sweetness? Quality? Characteristics becoming similar?

Thanks, David.

So, in your opinion, can one reasonably substitute a 20 yo Kab. for a 30 yo Spat.? Or is there enough difference to merit buying and ageing both?

Up to this point, I’ve not bought Kabinett with the intention of extended cellaring (except for one bottling, in particular, of which I’ve posted many times); seeing all the aged Kabi love here, however, I’m now re-thinking that.

Good question, Sarah. Frustratingly, I’m not sure I know the answer.

Perhaps, to put it another way, I could ask: Does Kabinett of xx years old typically come across the same as a Spatlese of yy years old and/or an Auslese of zz years old?

Or, maybe to put it yet another way: Am I missing-out on anything if I were to only buy and age Kabinett to full maturity and completely forego buying and ageing Spatlese and Auslese? I know the respective journeys will be different – I’m not asking about that; I’m more curious about their respective “final destinations,” if you will.

I think I understand what you’re getting at. I don’t think they do converge, in that sense. The original material stamps the wine in an indelible way, I think, though I’d be hard pressed to describe exactly what that way is. I’m sure others who have more experience with the sweeter styles would have much more to say.

Sounds like you’re receiving my question in the manner I was hoping it would be received, Sarah. Curious to see what others have to say, too!

Brian, I think the best way to think about this is that a 30 year Auslese will still be a sweet wine, and a 20 year old Kabi should be a less sweet tasting wine than a 30 year Auslese. Should.