No problem.
It’s been a while since I last tasted wines from the Vereinigte Hospitien. I know that they produce a Schubertslay GG.
I have not tasted any recent wines from the Vereinigte Hospitien, but their wines were really good from the decades of the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. Only last week, I was enjoying bottlings of Kabinetten from them from both the 1985 and 1986 vintages and the wines were outstanding and still right at their peaks, so even if they have slid in recent times, it is well worth keeping in mind that they were really very good back in the day. You can find many older bottles from them on the winelist at the Zeltinger Hof in the middle Mosel, with the 1986 Berncasteler Badstube Kabientt Halbtrocken my favorite of the 1980s Kabinetten on the list there (I tried three different V.H. wines over the week).
The vines in ‘their part’ were planted in 1993. Also not on their own roots and trained on wires.
(KP sent me the info having seen this discussion). Maybe they made great wines from the 60-100 year old vines that Keller now leases.
Thanks for the tip on old bottles.
Thanks for relaying the info from KP. I should have asked him myself. On the Vereinigte Hospitien website, they didn’t reveal that their part was replanted in 1993 (like most of Goldtröpfchen), despite having already leased the old vines to Julian.
Several of the Trier charities made great wines back in the day. Friederich-Wilhelm-Gymnasium once owned 36 hectares of vineyard in 21 sites spread throughout Zeltingen, Graach, Bernkastel, Dhron, Neumagen, Trittenheim, Klüsserath, and Mehring, as well as Falkenstein, Oberemmel, and Wiltingen on the Saar. The wines were vinified individually and cellared in 400 oak casks. The Falkensteiner Hof (today’s Hofgut Falkenstein), established in 1901, was one of their press houses. The grapes from the Falkensteiner Hofberg vineyard were pressed and fermented there. They had another one in Oberemmel. The casks were later transported to the main cellar in Trier. The neighboring 98-hectare Bischöfliche Weingüter Trier (Bischöfliches Konvikt, Bischöfliches Priesterseminar, and Hohe Domkirche) still has some of the best sites on the Mosel, Saar, and Ruwer.
Drinking the 2016 Kabi now. Beautiful stuff. Absolutely textbook!
That was a very nice list and all are my favorites. I am glad you add Willi, Christopher, and Andrea Schaefer to this list.
I bought white label but haven’t opened one yet!
Thanks for the note, Barry
to Charlie Gierling,
Thank you for the explanation. I have been drinking these wines for 50 years. The wines I enjoyed in the '70’s no longer exist as far as I know.
In the 1970s I found it normal for Kabinetts to have 7% alcohol, 1% (10 grams) of residual sugar, and 1% (or almost) titratable acidity. pH would be ~3. Today, with the Mosel a hot spot in the overall trend of climate change, I think that to get 7% alcohol and 1% sugar, you would likely be picking in August, with very little juice in the grapes, titratable acidity closer to 1.5% and pH something like 2.7, if that.
Does this sound correct to you? What are the closest wines today to what I was drinking in the '70’s?
Also, at that time Fred’s Gym was making very good, if not great wines, IMO significantly better than anything coming out of the Bitchoflische’s of Trier; I am removed from most German wines, so did not know that Fred’s Gym had been absorbed.
to John Gilman, many thanks for your detailed listing of those aiming for the old style, and how they hope to achieve it. The only German producer I continue to follow much at all is Grunhaus, also to a lesser extent J J Prum. I will look for some of the others.
My thanks to all who have contributed to this thread.
Dan Kravitz
Dan, the list(s) above are the closest thing you will find I think. I can’t be sure what you were drinking in the 70s as it’s before my time.
As to harvest in August. Well 2018 was the earliest harvest ever and the first one to occur during the auction.
This is amazing. My first White Kabi from Julian (I think).