$13000 Trockenbeerenauslese...

WINE TALK
1

Must be some RARE stuff! [shock.gif]

This one’s only 7K…

2

Egon > JJ

3

100% oxidized too

4

I don’t know about that. While I don’t have any personal experience, a Google image search shows that is just what very old TBAs look like.

5

it appears to be oxed…unless this is a super rare spatburgunder tba :wink:

buzz and i had a 55 auslese from mosel-saar-ruwer (can’t recall the producer) at a tasting in s.f. many years ago that was golden in color.

6

I have had the great pleasure of drinking a 1975 Egon Muller scharzhofberger TBA about 5 years ago that was simply phenomenal. The color was like molasses, with incedible sweetness and what had to be off the charts acidity. The color was like that from the day it was bottled. I believe fewer than 300 btls made. While this is way outside my price range, if it wasn’t I would buy this in a heartbeat.

7

i stand corrected. admittedly, i’ve only had that 55 and a 59 spatlese (which i had a couple of weeks ago). both golden in color.

[cheers.gif]

8

Anyone know why the bottles were 700ml back then?

9

I don’t drink old BAs and TBAs very often but …

Same brownish color to my recollection as Schaefer 1975 GD BA served at a Rieslingfeier event with Christoph Schaefer a few years back. Amazing wine.

And my 96 Donnhoff OB Eiswein halves were/are this color. Also an awesome wine.

There have been others but I’m blanking at the moment.

And i did see these auction lots on winebid during my weekly review of the lots. (Aside: Anyone else review a long list of predefined “Favorites” basically every week on winebid?) Those prices are nuts.

10

Without a back light on the bottles for the pictures, it is hard to say whether they are appreciably darker than well-stored 1989 Huet 1ere Tries or 1995 Krachers, which have been quite dark for years. I find that color is most unreliable as a proxy for a wine’s health with dessert wines (especially when botrytis is involved) and Nebbiolo.

11

When you start with what are essentially raisins, the wine is very dark from an early stage. It’s possible it’s oxidized by now, or at least pruny, but the botrytis and the concentration of the acids in TBAs can allow the best to last almost forever.

12

The 750ml standard was only agreed on internationally in the 1970s. Before that, some European wines were put in 700ml, 720ml or 800ml bottles instead of 750ml. (Citation 1; citation 2)

In the U.S., meanwhile, wines were usually marked in fluid ounces, and a standard bottle was “a fifth” – a fifth of a gallon, or 25.6 fluid ounces. That was actually 757ml. (Wikipedia entry) You’ll see find the 25.6 oz. embossing on some older American wines.

13

Colour looks OK I’d be more concerned with the cork protrusion.

These are a 53 TBA and EBA respectively for ideas of colour

14

Agreed with everyone else that color is not a concern.

The prices are about right too. Acker sold a bottle of each of these in the Grunewald sale this spring- $13,000 for the Egon Muller and $6,000 for the Prum- not including buyer’s premium.

1959 was the first year for Egon Muller’s TBA, and there is precious little of it around. I think the only reason you see 1959 as often as you do (rarely as opposed to almost never) is that German wine was extremely expensive and highly valued back then- with 1959 appreciated as a vintage with incredible potential and longevity.

(And yes- these are rare enough that I had a closer look at both sets of photos- not the same bottles coming back to auction again.)