I’m less concerned about acidity and more concerned about rot. IMO, rot more than anything has the potential to torpedo many otherwise good wines. There is more to a vintage than acidity levels.
Thanks! The 2023s from Hofgut Falkenstein are en route to California. Farm Wine Imports was one of the first to pick up their wines for shipment.
1 Like
Thanks, Robert! The Kabinett trocken wines from Hofgut Falkenstein are not for everyone, but Mosel Fine Wines really liked the 2023 Egon, which was the first bottle tasted in the lineup. Although the 2023 Mutter Anna wasn’t showing as well, it’s much better than the score given to it. My favorite among the four is the 2023 Munny.
Perhaps Julian Haart wanted to show his friend Johannes Weber that he can make Kabinett trocken, too.
Or maybe he wanted to show me since it from the same vineyard I made one of mine from 
JUST kidding! I meant to make Julian a special case of my three 2021 Kabinett Trockens!
1 Like
Or put more simply, ‘best’ is a concept that tends not to be very interesting or useful when it comes to understanding and appreciating wine. (Obviously limited context-specific exceptions abound…)
1 Like
Indeed. If we let wine be art then how can one declare what painting or sculpture is the best…
2 Likes
By which one costs the most? 
3 Likes
Can you recommend a retailer in the Bay Area, with a tight connection to the importer, where I can order the '23 Falkensteins?
Recently opened a 2021 Niedermenniger Im Kleinschock Riesling Kabinett (AP 20) and 2022 Krettnacher Euchariusberg Riesling Kabinett Alte Reben (AP8 “Gisela”) and there was definitely something wrong with them. My guess is they overheated (for an extended period).
1 Like
You should contact Farm Wine Imports in Berkeley.
I’m sorry to hear that about those two bottles of wine.
1 Like
Not sure how I missed that! Thank you. Hoping to have a corrective experience soon…
1 Like
Well, well, well my first 2023. If this is any indication of the vintage I like it. It is like a blend of 21 and 22.
2023 Ulli Stein Blauschiefer - If you know Ulli, it is really hard not to love an Ulli wine. I will try my best to be objective. The nose on this is really beautiful, demur, elegant, soft and enticing. The first sip is a savory rush of mineral laden crisp water with a lemon twist. The tastes hits your palate from all angles in a way that should not be possible for an “entry-level” wine. Each sip encourages a second and third sip. I opened this before dinner started and I am not sure the bottle is going to last until dinner hits the table. It is delightfully great and makes one giddy at just how good riesling can be. In the end it simply makes me joyously happy! What more could one ask from a wine.
I should also add that despite have the perfect amount of ripeness is it a mere 11.5% abv. And the acid is in perfect harmony.
And I ordered a 2nd case before posting this and will probably go back for more.
6 Likes
Yet they rate non Mosel wines, and also some non Rieslings. I don’t drink as widely as I used to, so there is not that much of an overlap. But I don’t recognize the wines I am drinking in their notes. The ratings are subjective. But it makes no sense to me that so many run of the mill Mosel wines score higher than big dry guns.
3 Likes
Hmm… I’m not so sure about this. One of the best thing about MFW is that they do bring new names up for wider audience. If you haven’t tasted the wines from those estates it’s imo wrong to assume those wines are not as good as “Big dry guns” are. I would probably rate many ~15 eur kabinetts just as high as 50 - 60 eur GGs too. The wines are completely different in style but if you are wine critic you need to taste the exact wine and it’s style, potential and quality not the label. 80% of highly praised GGs won’t do anything for me and I would probably always score good kabinett higher than good GG as it’s even harder to produce a proper kabinett than some ultra polished & often even chaptalized GGs. Or let’s say you have Keller’s G-Max and Schubertslay Kabinett side by side. How would you rate those? Completely different wines but probably just as high in point wise alas kabinett should have lower score because it has some residual sugar in it?
3 Likes
The eternal question, how to score across different categories…
So top Burgundies will never hit the highest ratings as those are reserved for the usual suspects. And top Muscadets will forever stay trapped in the lowest nineties …
Here I am comparing the wines I actually tried, and I sense a scale shift in favor of non dry wines.
There is nothing inherently wrong with that of course. Different strokes etc.
1 Like
These are personal preferences also but personally I have hard time to name a Mosel estate that has better dry wine than their best prädikat wines or overall better range of dry wines than wines with some amount of residual sugars. Sure there are exceptions like Martin Müllen and a couple of others or those who produces mainly dry natural wines but overall Mosel estates just nails wines with sugar in a way nobody else does which is why prädikat wines just tend to score higher. I don’t really read other reviews than MFW so I don’t know if there is differences between critics in this case. Pigott probably scores everything between 95 and 100 
. Naturally things would be very different if there would be “Pfalz / Nahe / Rheinessen / Baden / Württemberg Fine Wines” where dry wines are more or less their main focus and even many top producers fails to produce decent prädikat wines.
1 Like
I am coming from a different angle. It’s only about six years since I took real interest in MSR, and also now most of my dry Rieslings are from Rheinhessen, Nahe, Rheingau, Pfalz. In my opinion Mosel Riesling is a separate category as they have little in common with those coming from the other regions. And I can see an argument for scoring them below the higher end Praedikats from the same addresses. (With exception of Julian Haart: the Ohligsberg 2021 yesterday was as good as ever)
But when I see MFW score say Buerklin Wolf in the low nineties I am puzzled. I know people who could go aggro over this!
1 Like
Mosel dry wine has come a long, long way in the last 3-5 years! I think if Daniel Vollenweider (RIP) would have continued he would have ultimately been known for creating the greatest dry wine in the Mosel. If you have never tried the Vollenweider Aurum, I highly recommend it.
2 Likes
Mosel is definitely its own category. As a big fan of Alsace and Austria, I vastly prefer German Dry Riesling from regions other than the Mosel over Mosel dry wines, but that’s not true for everyone. Stylistic preferences likely play a big part.
3 Likes
BW have never had much of a reputation outside of Germany. Or at least not a comparable one.
1 Like
Yes, I had it. A fine wine without doubt, but doesn’t it drink a bit like a Chenin?