As part of the festival that is the annual grape harvest, the Auburn crew sat down to a blind tasting of dry Rieslings from around the world. The aim of this tasting was to evaluate, compare and contrast a variety of dry riesling styles. The only information the tasting group had was that the wines would meet the definition of “dry” in regions where there was one, and woudl be generally accepted as dry otherwise. Wines were served in pairs to keep the logistics of glassware decanters realistic, and was useful managing tasters attention spans.
Tasting held on 13 April 2013. Bottle shots courtesy of Stephanie Moseley.
Notes below are mine, as taken on the night, with a couple of postscript notes added.
Wine 1
Some reduction, passionfruit petrol. Lime rind, fennel, spice Waxy notes and lingering warmish finish of dried apricot – some botrytis here? Ripe and some coiled power here, some residual sugar helping the texture too. Many tasters questioned how this met the definition of “dry’. Mosel? Spatlese trocken? Somewhere around 09?
’11 Van Volxem Scharzhofberger (Mosel, Germany).
Wine 2
White flower and lemon nose. Drier than wine 1, minerally slatiness, and lime pith hints on the back palate. Taut and acid-carried onto the finish. Less ripe fruit and more an elegant style. ‘11? Kiwi?
’11 Verus (Slovenia).
Wine 3
Lemon curd nose. Palate seems quite developed. Texturally unusual in a watery, wetting way. Some petroleum character over a limey base, with that warming botrytis suggestion also present, perhaps suggesting alcohol. White flower and herbal elements and saline components here too.
’10 Tantalus Old Vine Riesling (Okanagan Valley, Canada)
Wine 4
Lemon pith nose, and grapefruit front palate. A bitter front of tongue note leading to a warm, even hot palate, with unusual bitter but spicy notes. Juicy texturally. Pink grapefruit notes here. Attractive but the bitterness is a bit off-putting.
’11 Petaluma Hanlin Hill (Clare Valley, Australia)
Wine 5
Bath salts and talc nose – lovely. Palate is similarly white flower lemon lime at first, lovely texture, touched with stonefruit and perhaps a touch of apricotty botrytis. Rich and texturally syrupy. Like the style – very Crawford River on the front end with the textural back palate. Closes down on the finish a little.
’11 Lemelson (Oregon, USA).
Wine 6
Madierised and sherry like nose. Red apple and grapefruit, tastes like raw bruised apple juice. Aromatics are wrong but the palate is OK. Postscript: 24 hours later, the nose had cleaned up considerably, and the palate continued to reflect bruised green apple, and tasted a lot like some of the 2013 raw juice samples we had seen on the previous two days.
’12 Sato (Central Otago, New Zealand)
Wine 7
Musky honeycomb nose, Auslese trocken palate! Ripe, apricotty, textural, phenolic. Oxidatively handled? There is a cooked fruit character here. This is sooo Zind Humbrecht in style. Could it be? No…
’10 Franz Pratner Falkenstein (Alto Adige, Italy)
Wine 8
Bush honey nose, palate is good-watery here too, and the bright zippy acids appear early as a spritz like thing. Warming and persistent – is this Alsace as well? Finish is more of the same ripe stonefruit style, but not at the same over the top level of wine 7.
’10 Pegasus Bay Bel Canto (Waipara, new Zealand)
Wine 9
Honeycomb like nose. Palate starts the same, with honeycomb, and perhaps a touch of old wood maturation rounding the palate out. A tingle in the palate which seems to be fresh acids, and showing some oxidative character which may be early signs of bottle age. Fairly quiet finish, with honey showing through again. Nice finish length, some pithy, good quality bittersweet things happening. Quite like the phenolics on this.
08 Clemens Busch Marienberg GG (Mosel, Germany)
Wine 10
Similar to wine 1 in some ways. Fresher but made in the same vein with the limey notes and waxy development showing, and acid fresh on the finish. Most likely an Australian bone dry style though, from the mid 2000s. Postscript: A pleasant surprise to see how well this is ageing and how fresh it looked in much younger company.
01 Grossett Polish Hill (Clare Valley, Australia)
At the end of all that we were each asked to give our top 3. Mine were:
Wine 9: Clemens Busch
Wine 10: Grossett
Wine 1: Van Volxem
With honorable mentions: Tantalus and Verus
Grossett and Clemens Busch were in most people’s top 3, but the third wine was more spread around, with the Verus, Tantalus and Lemelson all getting mentions.
A very instructive tasting where the objective was well met – we certainly got a look at a wide variety of ways to make dry Riesling.
Cheers
Andrew
From the Mornington Peninsula in Australia. Understated Packaging here, including the braille imprint on the label and the printed Diam closure. Other views on this wine hint that some breathing will be required - and the decant shows a pale garnet colour with pink at the rim. A limpidness that only Pinot Noir can do. This really does need airtime to drink now, or preferably some bottle age. Its all going about its business very quietly at this point, with a just-lifted, spicy blackcurrant waft. Front palate is orange peel at first, and all elegance after that. I find a lot of white wine character about this - in terms of it being fresh and alive. Bark and leaf savoury, spicy, just in the plum skin arena with a light touch of just ripe strawberries. Plenty of persistent pinosity here, silky texture and acids, that both build presence in the glass. This is very nicely balanced indeed, but really needs time to show its stuff. Lovely.
Two years ago I didn’t like this a lot,and left the rest of my stash to sleep for a bit. Worthwhile it was, too. Strawberry and cream smell with some sappy pinot fruit and pleasant forest floor mulchy goodness. Dried herb and cherry, along with some rhubarb and pinot stalk and sap with a real inner mouth lift. It does show that classic Felton Road silky tannin profile. But now it finishes with impressive warming length that it didnt ahve two years ago. It is drifting into dry red territory a bit, and whether you like this wine or not will depend on whether thats your thing or not. Holding well, and should continue to do so for a while yet. For me - 88/100
This stuff is everywhere. Along with Monkey Bay, Wahu, and a fleet of others this rides just behind the crest of the Oyster Bay wave in the Sauvignon Blanc ocean that breaks on the shore of Bondi and surrounds every year. Its made for a market, and the market slurps it up. Supply and Demand. Fast Moving Consumer Goods. Capitalism at work.
But what do you do when this stuff turns is, er, gifted to you, and sits in your cellar beside Burgundy, Mosel, Central Otago, Waipara?
I have the answer.
Photos to come.
Take 1 bottle of Sauvignon Blanc.
Heat in a pan until simmering, set a match to it to burn out the alcohol. Once done, add 1 cup of caster sugar, stir untill dissolved, set aside to cool.
Cut up 9 leaves of gelatin and soak in cold water.
Dice and apple and a nectarine, douse in your favourite spirit and leave for a few minutes to soak up the flavour. Iv’e used Cointreau and Brandy, but Calvados is my favourite for this.
When the Sauvignon mixture has cooled to room temperature stir in the gelatin.
Choose a gelatin mold, pour in the jelly mixture, add the fruit, refrigerate. To avoid the fruit floating to the top, do this in a few layers and use the freezer rather than the fridge. Only put in the second layer when the first one has set enough to hold the fruit pieces in place.
Dismould and serve at your liesure.
A refreshing, and attractive looking summer dessert.
And a life ring tossed into the Sauvignon ocean.
Christmas is never a big wine drinking event for us, with a small family who just don’t drink a lot of alcohol, and usually a fair bit of driving to be done. But as I reflect on what we did drink over the two days, it was 100% one grape variety only.
Riesling. And a nice selection of them at that.
2010 Auburn Lowburn Riesling:
(Not pictured) In a quiet spot right now, the gush of citrussy tropical youth this vineyard shows has gone to sleep, and this needs some time to show its secondary characters.
2006 Craggy Range Glasnevin Gravels:
Last drunk 2 years ago. This has changed. A lot. This is now a glass of bickfords lime cordial, with a juxtaposition of lively spearmint like freshness against the developed characters of petroleum jelly. The balance and flavours could easily be Australian, in the green and yellow fruit spectrum rather than tilting toward citrus. Unexpected, and likeable for its clean purity, quite different to the complexity of its youth. Drink up. 89/100
2008 Donnhoff Oberhauser Liestenberg Kabinett:
This has come along nicely in the last two years, settling down and integrating a lot. Creaming soda and lemonade in its character still, such a joyful thing. Settling into its lemon lime groove, fresh flavours with that green herb touch and a slatey sulphur edge I hadn’t noticed before. Now with an assured, relaxed summer drink character. Love it. 91/100
2007 Donnhoff Norheimer Kirscheck Spatlese:
Light golden colour. Slightly custardy vanilla nose over quince and nectarine, Delicate to smell all in all with its effusive youth now behind it. Palate is also delicate with the flush of white fleshed peach and lemon curd lightly touched with first toasty honey of middle age, also joined by custardy vanilla tones. A little muted in flavour, but still an acid zing nicely in harmony with its sweetness to make this balanced and understated. Good wine. 88/100
2005 Zilliken Saarburger Rausch Auslese Goldkapsel:
This is an unassuming little thing, quite shy for this quality level. First couple of sips only say “look harder” - in that very Zilliken way. There is some lime fruit, there is some vanilla bean, creme patissiere, there is some delightful apricot and cumquat. There’s a lovely acid play and a lengthy finish, all woven together in a classically styled old skool package. Lovely wine, but be careful - its not as sweet as some at this pradikat level. Way too young, and hard to rate – should be quite something in 5 to 10 years.
“That’s beautiful!”
And it wasn’t the way you describe soemone elses baby, it was a gaspy almost tearlike expression from my drinking partner when drinking their first glass of A J Adam Riesling.
And so it is. My oh my - this is something. For a Kabinett level wine this has it all. Slatey, sulphured lime, orange and a trace of apricot nose. The front palate is also nettles and lime, leading to pithy orange, slatey goodness, just an additive whiff of estery bananas, and a chord of acid that rings pure like crystal to bring in a juicy lipsmacking finish. The interweb tells me this is 10.8g/l acid, so the sugar must be above 50g for this to be even bearable. Seriously high class stuff that you can drink now for the thrill, or cellar with confidence for years. Outstanding, and a screaming bargain in the wine world at about thirty bucks.
So alive.
93/100 at least.
Options wine category killer this. Could be Cabernet. Then it could be Mouvedre. You have very special friends indeed if they are experts on Aglianico. And yet here it stands, and it can be no other.
Ripe, red purple colour. Garrigue like, green and black pepper spice nose hiding some small berry fruit. Densely packed fruit flavours in the blackcurrant pastille and licorice spectrum, with that same spicy ground pepper lift. Oak present and accounted for. The palate is a little bit cabernet shaped but Rhoney flavoured, and after time shows a bit of black olive and coffee grounds. Flavour persists at the edges of the tongue for a while, with a sawn pine-like tannin finish. I don’t think this is going to evolve into anything too complex, but hey why wait. Classical? No. Interesting? Hell yes.
$30-something from Cru Bar on James Street.
Vietnamese duck in ricepaper rolls is fun, from slicing up the salad greens, dry toasting some cashews, tearing up a duck and getting absolutely slathered in duck fat, and dunking the ricepaper rolls to fill with tasty goodness, roll up, dip in the soy/hoisin/honey sauce, and have it drip all over the place as you tuck in.
And burgundy goes with duck. Thats a bit of a long bow to draw in a meal thats full of wombok, mint, coriander nuts and chilli, but it was worth testing these two wines out. I also wanted to check out a couple of 06’s to see how they are travelling, as I’ve had one or two people comment on the low acids and limited ageing potential of the year.
2006 Bouchard Mersault 1er les Genevrieres
Database shows I bought these from a young enterprising salesman named Max Marriott in 2008. Theres something about Bouchard’s whites. A comfortable pair of shoes. That favourite corner of the couch. The putt you make every time. And here we have the 06 Genevrieres, one of the looser knit Mersaults in their range, from a vintage being talked about as low acid. So this should be approachable, yes? Well yes it is. Its mid straw these days. Smells of cashews and cream, with a bit of peach fuzz sneaking in there. Texture arrives first, lush and comforting, peachy goodness again, accompanied by nougat mid palate richness, and almond meal nutiness on the close. This glides along for a while, showing great posture, and a touch of grapefruit pith on the back palate. It is loose knit, and showing first signs of butterscotch development. My choice is to enjoy now and for a year or two. 90/100.
And it matched with the freshness of the salad component of the rolls well.
2006 Marquis d’Angerville Volnay 1er Tallepieds
Opened and banged into a decanter quickly when we saw the Bouchard was goen before the duck even hit the table. This really needs more airtime, or more bottle age to show its stuff. As it is, not much of the Volnay perfume evident just yet, more of a glossy black cherry with some yeasty, vegemite like notes. Plenty of sap and skins and stalks about this, and ample tannins. More black cherries as the palate opens up and the stemmy notes slip into a supporting role, this was just coming together into a nice package and asserting its presence as we quit for the night. 89/100
Not an ideal match, but tasty pinot nonetheless.
A nice change to see a red with some transparency, and 13% alcohol - just the ticket looking for something very “foody”, which in this case means higher acid. This is fairly muted, or subtle, depending how magnanimous you’re feeling. Either way the nose is dusty - dessicated foliage. Medium weight, with a blackberry undercurrent and a spoonful of chewy tannins forming its base. The top notes here are redcurrant and tomato and some stemmy herbalness, dusted lightly with white pepper and other spices. Slippery palate that washes by to leave a slick of licorice and blueberry behind, and refreshing tomato leaf acids and tannins that make it brilliant with pizza, pasta, or even the middle eastern lamb rump we tried. And better on the second day too. Extra point for the cute label. 87/100 .
I’ve had a few battles with 2007 Burgundy. Its one of those vintages that just reinforces that Burgundy is about 3 things: Producer, Producer and Producer.
While the Esmonin name has been around for a while, the Sylvie branch of that family is new to me. Worth a look I thought - lets see what she does with Gevrey fruit.
Slightly cloudy appearance, sappy stalky forest berries, and some sweet oak on the nose. 30 minutes in a decanter breathes up both red and black ripe berry flavours, touched by spearmint like stalkiness and a plum-skin, grape tannin like tinge. This is immediately satisfying with its glossy mid palate, lovely oak treatment, fine tannins and a persistent slightly warm finish. An attractive package at the riper end of all things Burgundy.
However…
A couple of hours of airtime sees this evolve into something else - the tannins assert their presence a little more, and the fruit puts on weight to become blackberry jam - enough that in a blind lineup I would pick this as Grenache and Mouvedre.
A nice enough wine, but a long way from varietal, and caveat emptor that you arent getting delicacy and fragrance in your pinot from Mme Esmonin. Should age for a while, but no apparent clues as to where its evolution will take it.
Cheers Andrew
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