Curious to hear tasters’ experiences in decanting German Rieslings from recent vintages.
Does it help or hurt? Or neither.
Will it help tame that initial sulfur blast from some producers?
If so, how long do you decant?
Better to just Audoze it in morning?
For arguments sake, let’s say you are handling a 2017 Egon Muller Spatlese
And no tsk tsk about the need to wait 20 years before opening it, please …
TIA.
Personally I sick and tired of hearing about what kanye thinks about anything-including decanting Riesling.
I will slow O Riesling much more often than decanting. Many hours as well its fine. Generally for Pradikat wines I do not decant. I have ruined a couple but small sample size. For younger GG’s at a restaurant I will make an exception.
Extremely rare that I will decant a Riesling. Extremely rare.
That’s what I thought. I never have. Just curious if I’m missing something.
If it’s a current release and I’m going to have more than a glass or two, I’ll often decant because otherwise it’s gone well before it has time to open up. Ideally, I will practice restraint and taste the bottle over one or more weeks, depending on the wine.
No.
I almost never do, but young Riesling is especially hearty and can easily take on oxygen.
slight drift here – not quite decanting –
but coupla years back in Vienna my date and i topped off an intense Easter Sunday –
main event being Wagner’s »Parsifal« at the Staatsoper –
with a visit to the fanciest wine list in town, at Palais Coburg
where we ordered for the princely sum of €125
a bottle of 1975 Schloss Eltz Rauenthaler Baiken Riesling Spätlese
(which is the best wine i have drunk in the last decade,
close second being the 1968 Rioja Gran Reserva from Castillo de Ygay)
the sommelier did not decant the bottle,
but did pour it into the biggest Burgundy bowls in the house
and amazing what a bit of oxygen did for the old fellow…
so would not rule out decanting
I decant riesling all the time, especially young riesling. A lot of rieslings, both young and old can benefit from some time to open up. There’s no generalised hard and fast rule. I usually just open a bottle and make a decision then. There’s a few producers I tend to decant often, Schafer-Frohlich probably being the best example, as I tend to almost always reach for a decanter for their dry wines. Opened a 13 and 19 Felseneck this week, and they both needed a long decant
As far as your example of a 2017 Egon Spatlese goes, it’s tough to say. I haven’t had the 2017 Egons recently, but I’ve been finding a lot of the 2017 rieslings in general seem to be pretty shut down at the moment; decanting doesn’t really tend to solve that problem though.
I’m with Rodrigo. I find both Keller and Schaefer-Frohlich, for example, benefit from decants. S-F in particular used to have a fair amount of sponti (much less so these days), but decanting really helps with that. In bigger vintages these wines can also be quite tight, and decanting helps that too. I tend to feel similarly about white burgundy (well, not about sponti), which I tend to decant more than red these days.
Of course, I’m only referring to dry wines 
If you’re going to open 13 S-F, kupfergrube is the way to go. Such a happy wine.
Just smell the freshly opened wine. If there are odd smells (anything odd except oxidation and unequivocal cork taint) give it some air. All 3 techniques work - decanting, open bottle for hours, big glass and some time. This applies to all types of Riesling, dry, off-dry, sweet, young, and mature, because in Riesling the aromas are so fragile and important for the pleasure. Btw: as the inside of the bottle where the cork was ist sometimes smelly a DropStop might help.
I occasionally splash decant for 10-15 minutes, mostly Rieslings that are built for the long-term. And tend to drink some rieslings over multiple days just because I open a lot of bottles.
I have never had good luck decanting Rieslings that are intended for long-term aging and often closed Keller G-Max and Koehler-Ruphrect RR are two of the best examples. I have never had any luck getting them to open with decanting. I emailed Dominik and told him I was taking a 08 Koehler-Ruphrect RR to dinner and asked him when I should open and he replied, you should have opened it up a week ago.
I think temperature is even more important than decanting if you start a riesling off too warm it will loose focus quickly as it warms up.
Agree with this plus the usual caveat of starting too cold which mutes the wine.
Agreed. Kupfergrube and Stromberg are probably my favourite 13 S-F GGs. The 13 Felseneck was a spontaneous purchase. Made a last minute pit stop at noreetuh earlier in the week and Jin happened to have it on the list.
While on the topic of decanting S-F, how long did you decant the 2019 S-F Felseneck? My bottles just arrived last month and thought I’d take one for a spin.
3 days- here is my TN of a couple of months ago,
pale champagne color, on opening an intense aroma of rising bread dough that persisted for over 12 hours and was noticeable even several feet from the decanter, at the same time the palate was mercilessly tight and primary- a massive creature coiled and poised to strike, a primary fruit not yet defined with cascades of rose petals leading into a painfully acid-driven finish of exceptional length, on day two the nose had a more classic profile but still this was very tight, on day 3 (bottle in the fridge without a cork or any preservatives) finally this came out, grapefrut and kumquats on the nose, blue slate notes, rose petals, the palate a mirror image of the nose but still very primary with extraordinary tension underneath, saline notes emerging, length to burn and the promise of a fiery presence when it fully reveals itself, this is GG at its biggest- tough to read now but clearly great provided one waits a decade or more, this is a superb and singular wine and I get it- but as with Keller this is a bit big for my tastes.
(*****), 2035++
To the OP- on 2017 Egon Muller Spatlese, I have not had that one young, but I did open both the 2018 Spatlese and 2018 Kabinett Auction very young, and based on that- plus taking the character of 2017 into account- I would recommend opening and decanting the day before, and then put the wine back in the bottle after 2-3 hours and then enjoy it the following night.
Best, Tom.
I opened one last year and decanted it for about 5 hours. It was a lot more open than they 18 (and had a lot less sponti) at the same age, which was pleasantly surprising. Still not remotely what I’d call “open”, but the last few vintages have drunk better out of the gate. It will be a largely educational experience, but not an unpleasant one.
I gave the 19 Felseneck about 3h in a captain’s decanter with vigorous swirling throughout.
I think 19 and 20 marks a stylistic change for S-F GGs—at least to me. The signature sponti is still there in full vigour, but less… overtly aggressive, for lack of a better word (have yet to try the 21s though). I imagine they are still challenging to those more sensitive to sponti, but personally I don’t mind some amount of it.
The 17 Felseneck I opened a few weeks ago by comparison got an 8+ hour decant and even then it felt like more was still needed.