I always think of it as drinking Spring or Fall. Spring is exuberant and bright, Fall is more muted but deeper, a little darker and much more complex.
I’m a sweater person myself.
Talking about dry Austrian Rieslings only:
they can be drunk young, aged, in between … and the best also very mature (25+) …
There is a certain period when some of them are not as expressive, looking a bit tired, less fragrant etc, but I hesitate to call that “closed”.
WHEN vm depends on the vintage, on the “dryness” (they can still have up to 9 gr sugar with the apropriate acidity), on the quality (Prädikat), e.g. Steinfeder, Federspiel, Smaragd, Spätlese etc, level of Botrytis, and on the style … usually to be found anywhere between 4/5 and 10/12 years … or not at all …
Good to know as I have a couple of these and have not tried it.
I’ve been looking around and am so glad that it seems that I can get some quality rieslings with 15-20 years on them without paying an arm and a leg like I would need to for some red wines.
I tend to find petrol notes less common in high quality producers. Am I alone in that?
No, I agree - the strongest petrol notes I´ve found in some German Kabinetts - with alc. of only 8 or 9%, but high RS, and also in some dry Steinfeder or Federspiel and equivalents after 10, 12, 15 years …
(but I´m NOT an authority on German Rieslings …)
I think the petrol notes have become less common in more recent older wine. I used to get a ton of it in wines from the '70s and '80s, even from top tier producers. Wines from the '90s that are now getting into maturity do not seem to have it as much. Whether that is just too soon or a real change is not quite clear yet.
I also do find that the petrol element fades with even more age, so if bottling has it, just lay it down longer.
Hi Gerhard,
We did a riesling tasting in spring and I brought Kellerberg Riesling smaragd from Pichler and Singerriedel smaragd riesling from Hirtzberger both from 2005 which is supposed to be a great year. Both wines were really not singing, indeed looked a bit tired. Having no experience with old Austrian riesling I just thought I had kept them too long but you are now saying that these might re-emerge in 10-15 years? In that case I will keep my remaining bottles!
2005 a great year?
It’s a good year, but by no means great. I have had a lot of up and down luck with 2005 Austrians.
Yeah, I’ve never found riesling-based wines to be “dead”, because they always show something to me, whether it be exuberant fruit, lacy texture, brilliant acidity, etc., but have caught some during an “off” period when they could definitely be more than they could be.
And John are you sure about Condrieu? I’ve always found those to be the most open of Rhone whites, perhaps due to their (usually) short lives. White Rhones, however, made from marsanne/rousanne are notorious for becoming dead bricks if you catch them in middle age.
David:
Do you have any thoughts on how the 2001 Mosels are drinking?
Kaninetts are in a great spot now. Some spatlese are getting to a good mid-maturity (but by no means all) and properly stored Auslese are mostly too young for my palate, but perfect for my wife who likes more fruit forward wines.
Condrieus are, or were, famous for shutting down for a long time – 15-20 years. And that was my experience when I had them more often in the 80s and early 90s.
I haven’t drunk Condrieu frequently in recent years. Perhaps the winemaking has changed. In many regions, including Germany and the Loire (I’m thinking of sweet wines here), there’s less sulfur used now, and I think that did tend to shut down wines for long periods.
What many others have said: Riesling go through a dumb phase. Even a wide open vintage like '11 shut down or even a lush vintage like '09, '07 seem only now starting to wake up whilst '06 are now slimmer and more enjoyable than a while ago. It is quite evident John, that you have not tasted for long and in vast amount to perceive this. It is quite common as Riesling being so aromatic, can appear wide open throughout his life (opposite to your correct example of Condrieu).
Moreover secondary notes are generally defined as notes coming from the vinification and elevage processes. The Diesel/Petrol notes you mention if anything belong to the tertiary world (bottle age and fruit development using the WSET paradigm). I may add that some type of vinification will allow for these notes to come forward at a very young age (too technical to go in detail). I don’t particularly like them and they are usually a symptom of very low quality (often found in Riesling from down under and in some producer even in the Mosel, Loosen come to mind, clearly not a beacon of quality).
Finally I am sure you are aware that wines don’t dry out, residual sugar is basically constant throughout the life of a wine (so is alcohol). What you are referring to is the evoution of primary aromas into tertiary wich flavors moving from stone and tropical to dried fruit and alikes.
Actually, I’ve been drinking riesling for more then 35 years and have had the good fortune to be in a tasting group for more than 20 years that was originally a riesling-only group (before my time) and hence the members buy and have cellared a lot of riesling. So I’ve tasted it young, in mid-life and old for decades.
If it “can appear wide open throughout [its] life,” I don’t know what it means to say it goes through a dead stage.
Surely you don’t deny that very mature sweet rieslings taste dryer and lighter.
I gather it’s hard to explain in chemical terms how the sugar level could fall; it may be that other chemical changes make the wines seem dryer even if the residual sugar remains constant. But according to an interesting discussion recently on Jamie Goode’s website on just this subject, there is simply no research on R.S. levels in older sweet wines. The discussion there includes lengthy comments by David Schildknecht, who certainly knows his riesling.
I was going to defend John on that but he beat me to it 
.
It’s precisely because I know he has a lot of experience with riesling that his comments surprised me. I wonder if it might be a function of the specific producers his group usually tastes?
Way too much focus on the word “dead” in this thread. I presumed the OP was just using a different word for when many of us refer to mute or shut down.
Ditto.
Yes.