TN: '04 Donnhoff Norheimer Dellchen Riesling Spat. Auction

WINE TALK
1

AP # 77530101405

This also had a Gold Kap. No bells and whistles strangely.

Absolutely brilliant wine. Very open right out of the gates with a nose of lime zest, papaya, melon, canned peach juice and lovely pure minerality. A wonderful nose. So compelling and really smells like some place. The palate had exceptional breadth but altogether held by a lovely spine of juicy acidity. A truly breathtaking mouthfeel and exuberant puppy-like affectionate fruit. This wine is jumping in the window display of puppies yapping 'drink me, drink me!" It is that good. Not much complexity yet on the palate but I am sure that will come but this has a major drinkability factor going on.

2

Sounds delicious. I’ve really begun to embrace Riesling, Champagne, and Burgundy in the last couple of years…sounds like it would be right up my alley.

3

As I sip on a wine this profound I selfishly think how could something this good be NOT up anybody’s alley?

4

Lyle,

Thanks for the note. I have a small stash of these, but haven’t opened one yet. I know there’s been some questions about Donnhoff and ageability – what’s your take? Do you think this will go the distance, as it should?

5

You lucky dog!

BTW I have read that a gold capsule on Donnhoff means nothing. Is this not true?

6

A gold capsule may mean nothing. All his Brucke and Hermannshohle auslesen have gold caps for example.

On a spatlese a gold capsule means just that, since his regular spatlesen have white caps.

There’s a lot more to this, but I’ve written it 9 or 10 times before & it’s too early for the long form explanation.

7

My success rate for aging Donnhoff is low. Maybe 30-40 percent. So choose as you will but I tend to see them as lovely young and middle age wines but won’t make old bones like a Prum or Haag. That might just be the way Nahe wines age. Who knows?

8

We haven’t seen top provenance older Donnhoff wines here in quantity.

I don’t think we can know if they will make old bones yet.

I’ve had some profound '89s and '90s, but nearly all of my '96s were heat damaged or had utterly lousy corks.

9

I want to know what will happen to that bizarre, multi-dimensional, electro-crystalline mouthfeel that you get in a young Donnhoff - especially in the cool, lean “weak” vintages [1999, 2000, 2004].

Does it disappear over time?

Conversely - will the big, sloppy wines of the hot vintages [2003, 2005] eventually shed their baby fat and develop some multi-dimensionality?

BTW, the basic 2004 Estate riesling [the $19.99-ish one] is just spectacular right now.

Don’t know where it’s going, or if it can possibly improve, but boy is it a profound wine at the moment.



PS: Was googling just now and noticed the following thread from March of this year:

More TN’s and why does Donnhoff not age well
Rockss and Fruit: More TN's and why does Donnhoff not age well

Reading about the dead bottles of Donnhoff, it makes me wonder if maybe they might have had silicon-ized corks instead of paraffin-ized corks?

In any event, I wish that Donnhoff [or Prum, for that matter] would spend an extra $0.25 or $0.50 per bottle and purchase some really nice corks [like the ones that Toni Bodenstein uses on his high-end wines].

10

I’ve had a Nahe TBA from 1921 that was lovely, so they can age. Whether all of them age is another question. I’m more experienced with non-Trocken Donnhoff, and nothing I’ve tasted from 02 onwards seemed likely to suddenly come apart. I do have less faith in the ageworthiness of Trocken wines.