Eiswein aging experience

I have a couple of bottles of the 1998 Bernkastler Badstube Eiswein. When should I be drinking them?

Thank you

Brodie Thomson

It depends a little bit on the producer and his philosophy of producing icewine! Usually an icewine has a very good aging potential, because of the high acidity and high residual sweetness. As higher the acidity ( more than 16,17 or 18 gr/l), I prefer to drink the icewine rather young, in between the first 15 years, therefore that the wines tend to develop a smoky character after 20/25 years, which I do not like so much. If the acidity is rather moderate (10 to 14 gr/l) the wine develops rather the typically matured aromas of a Riesling, which I prefer. The best way to find out is to pop the cork and to check it out yourself! I am sure that the wine will already showing beautiful.

Ah, interesting. Most Canadian icewine hovers around 10-12 gr/L of titrable acidity, which is probably why they don’t age well. I didn’t realize the German eisweins got that high in their acidity levels. Now I’ll have to hunt some more down!