TN: 2014 Peter Jakob Kühn Oestricher Doosberg Riesling Großes Gewächs

The result is a dense, rich, and concentrated wine. Filled with peach and tropical fruit characters (pineapple and mango). On the palate while that concentration comes through, the structure still feels a bit rounded. There’s a distinctive creaminess to it from extended lees contact and malo with a round and softer acid edge. Some petrol-filled smoky and salty finish. It felt like it was missing something, je se ne quoi.

Took the remaining 1/3 of the bottle back home and consumed the rest about an hour later from a Grasl Cru. The fruit appeared to recede a bit on the nose to make way for a captivating mix of sweet and delicate white aromatic flowers: mock orange, aztec pearl, osmanthus burkwoodii, but on the palate it felt much the same as before.

Aromatically, it’s lovely, especially from the Grassl (what a difference the stem made), but on the palate it seems to fall short for my tastes. Clearly well made and with intention. There’s concentration, complexity, depth, but I think the combination of richness from the lees and wooden vat and the rounder, softer acid feel from the malolactic makes this feel like a wine that speaks more to winemaking than a sense of place. AP 08 16

ABV: 13.0%
Closure: natural cork
Decant: 90min at restaurant // 3h in when tasted at home
Stem: non-descript white wine glass; later Grassl Cru
Assemblage: two years on lees in a large wooden vat, full malo.

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Thanks for the interesting note. PJK is a producer that I usually enjoy quite a bit - haven’t had any of their 2014s , although it was a year that I bought lightly from across Germany. Sorry to hear that this was a relative disappointment.

It happens. Though one may try to avoid it, one’s bound not to enjoy all wines one consumes. I have enjoyed several of PJK’s wines in the past though. And as luck would have it, I managed to taste the 2012 version of the wine yesterday. No formal notes, but it was significantly less heavy handed, a bit higher in acid and more balanced. I have a few 2018s that I’m looking forward to trying in a few years.

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I have liked wines from the Doosberg, but it’s hardly the strongest terroir in the Rheingau.

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Agreed, and like Lenchen, Doosberg was enlarged to an absurd size by the 1971 law.

Spreitzer had a killer 1989 Doosberg Kabinett at the Rieslingfeier dinner when I sat with him a few years ago.

Glad to hear that the 2012 was a big improvement over the 2008.