Tasting - 30 German Estate Dry Riesling 2012

WINE TALK
1

Selten gab es ein Jahrgang in Deutschland aus dem die Weine so viel Substanz hatten aber so charmant gewirkt haben."

Stuart Pigott


Yesterday I hosted the “BerlinGutsrieslingCup” and served blind 30 Estate Rieslings of the upcoming vintage 2012 to a group of Riesling experts. The Estate Riesling is the business card of every estate.


Top 3

A.J. Adam
Keller “Pinard de Picard Edition”
Bürklin-Wolf

In comparison to last year the vintage 2012 is more slim, fresher, more ambitious, shows less alcohol, perfect balancing&ripe acidity and overall lovely well-balanced. Clearly the Top Estate Rieslings are better in quality in comparison to 2011. And with view of the GGs or Grand Cru Rieslings the vintage 2012 has a better aging potential than 2011.

Interesting to see that the regions Rheinhessen and Mosel dominate the Top 10.

Ranking

  1. A.J. Adam
  2. Keller “Edition Pinard de Picard”
  3. Bürklin-Wolf
  4. Keller
  5. Geltz-Zilliken
  6. Scultetus-Brüssel
  7. Julian Haart
  8. Wittmann
  9. Knewitz
  10. Fritz Haag
  11. Schäfer-Fröhlich
  12. Karl Schaefer feinherb
  13. Dönnhoff
  14. Andi Schneider
  15. Emrich-Schönleber
  16. Bassermann-Jordan
  17. Battenfeld-Spanier
  18. Krebs
  19. Seehof
  20. Fürst
  21. Christmann
  22. Thörle
  23. Kühling-Gillot
  24. Van Volxem
  26. Rebholz
  27. Karl Schaefer trocken
  28. Breuer Sauvage
  29. Schloss Johannisberg
  30. von Winning

Note: the second place by Keller is a special edition for the german wine-dealer Pinard de Picard. Don´t worry, the regular Estate Riesling version ranked #4 is as good as the special edition.

Cheers,
Martin Zwick

2

Thanks Martin for the list. Where can one read the Verkostung Notizen :slight_smile: ?

3

Panos,

maybe more notes here: das weinforum .de • BerlinGutsrieslingCup - Gutsrieslinge 2012 - Weinproben und Verkostungsberichte

So far short impressions are already published here:

4

12 Estate Rieslings better than Donnhoff?

What are the prices like?

5

And how many cases make it to the states? I’ve only heard of four of those higher scoring wines.

6

A blind tasting by knowledgeable and passionate Riesling fans sometimes yields surprising results.
As for importing some of these wines to the US, someone ought to start that :slight_smile:

7

nteresting, how was the ranking performed?

No Prum, Grunhaus or Muller?

I never really buy these estate wines (except Muller) as I find the Kabinett and Spatlese usually well worth the extra few pounds.
Posts

8

Martin,

what is *** under #25?

Christian

9

Don’t worry, the Dönnhoff was really good. I gave it 87 P and tasted it afterwards. Really good. As always very clean, stylish, no unripeness. If you like that style there is no reason not to buy it. This sort of wine suffers sometimes in blind tastings as it is not “loud” at all.
The linked tasting notes are mine. Sorry for being so short. Hope others will post as well.

10

Russell,

every taster gave scores. Here the average score of the Top 5

A. J. Adam 89pts.
Keller PdP 88 pts.
Bürklin-Wolf 88pts.
Keller 87pts.
Geltz-Zilliken 87pts.

Prüm bottle very late.

11

Christian,

by mistake I picked a Scheurebe instead of the Riesling trocken from Katharina Wechsler.
BTW, well-made Scheurebe.

12

Prum and Muller do not make dry Riesling. I missed Grunhaus as well. There was no Württemberg and no Baden as well. Rheingau was represented “only” by Breuer and Schloss Johannisberg. But you can’t cover all! Selection was great and I think we have a picture now. To me it looks like this:

Generally very high quality.
The fruit is more on the lemon side than peach, apple etc.
Acidity is good, high, but in most cases not green.
A good part of the wines were slightly astringent. I wonder if this is due to to the vintage or vinification style.
Perceptible amounts of residual sugar are there!

13

Some estates bottle in may like von Racknitz or Diel. Therefore I had no bottles.
Also Balthasar-Ress from Rheingau bottle later I guess, as I didn´t receive a bottle.

Last year several estates from Baden couldn´t send me bottles due to late bottling.

14

[cheers.gif]

Ok, the initial post only said estate Riesling, not dry versions.