P.S.
for Germans who are reading here and people who understand the German language I strongly recommend to read a gorgeous interview with Julia&KP Keller in the just released new edition of the FINE wine magazine. No bla bla…….
P.S.
for Germans who are reading here and people who understand the German language I strongly recommend to read a gorgeous interview with Julia&KP Keller in the just released new edition of the FINE wine magazine. No bla bla…….
If that was a humble brag, it’s like saying “I saw a bottle of Heredia Gran Reserva for $40 in a local shop the other day but couldn’t buy it at the moment.” How can missing a great opportunity be a humble brag?
Agree the 2013 Keller GG’s are fire good and the 11s can be consumed now not sure if they will get better. Finding the 11’s a bit uneven had Hubacker 11 2 weeks ago which was best 11 I have had but a couple of 11 Abtserde and Kirchspiel in recent months have been good but not great.
If you have to explain it, it loses its bite
Apologies Otto I was posting quickly in the midst of quick Burgundy trip. The part about 2010 Abts was meant to be tongue and cheek because it is such a great wine and not a humble brag.
I do think that a tasting of this sort that has a combination of other top GGs (e.g., Schäfer-Fröhlich, Emrich Schonleber) and then throw in some wild cards like maybe mid-level non GG producers or a wine like the Martin Mullen which is under-the-radar. @Greg_K organized a major Schäfer-Fröhlich dinner and it was fascinating to taste one Keller in the midst of this line up as it really stood out.
Anyway appreciate your detailed notes on lots of really cool tastings.
No biggie, the jest in the original message was just lost (at least on me), probably due to your hurry.
Indeed it is silly how these Keller wines really stand out from the crowd - and not in a way that would make them somehow very unique or idiosyncratic in style. No, I’d say that toasty Von Winning and those burly, powerful Knyphausen wines were distinctive enough to be identifiable in how they were different. The Keller wines stand out from the crowd just because they are as varietally correct Rieslings as any other great Rieslings, but they are, well, just better. The level of intensity, structure, precision, harmony and tension there is just something other producers rarely achieve.
Anyways, as said before, this was not a serious tasting in any way (even though we take even these non-serious tastings with enough seriousness to have a score tally at the end and whatnot!) but just a great opportunity to drink a superb Keller in good company and get people to bring a bunch of random 2010 Rieslings just for the heck of it!
(Well, to be honest, one person took the 2009 Clos Ste Hune tasting pretty seriously and got visibly upset when a bunch of German wines beat CSH so badly. But then again, he was a Frenchman from Alsace, so I guess that’s understandable!)
Happy to see the Knyphausen showed well. Lovely family and wines. I like to stay there when in that part of the Rheingau.
I think Knyphausen are not regarded particularly highly, but I’ve understood their wines are much better now than how they used to be.
I don’t know how these Knyphausen wines in our tasting performed compared to their style of today - admittedly they were certainly quite big, concentrated and even somewhat extracted efforts for German Riesling. However, these were still surprisingly impressive and enjoyable for such big wines - I’ve had some similarly massive Rieslings from other producers in the past and usually they’ve been clumsier and less enjoyable in comparison.
I just opened this last night, enjoyed it immensely. Took about 30 minutes for the funk to blow off, then it really sang - fantastic combination of sweetness, acidity, and pop on the palate.
Not sure I’d call Mullen a “mid-level” wine. At spätlese and trocken level, I’d take Mullen over JJ Prum 90% of time. One of my favorites. Sneaker guy though, so we don’t talk about it.
Well I am huge fan of Martin Mullen, have visited them three times and buy a ton. I referred to it is as under-the-radar which I think is fair given it is only a 4 hectare estate. What I meant by mid-level is something like Keller Von der Fels or Emrich-Schonleber Mineral that are in the middle of a GG producer’s lineup.
Well I’d take the trocken over Prum’s.