Vinoculation

As I sip this wine I can think of two ways to describe it.

Clinically: This is glowing gold, and tastes like ripe pineapple, passionfruit, orange pith, apricot and seville orange rind, with a touch of vanilla and honey. Decent length, and leaves you salivating and wanting another glass.

Emotionally: Walking the rows at the Lowburn vineyard that Auburn takes its fruit from, snips in hand, 20 litre bucket at my feet. The buzz of happy, hung over pickers around me who are doing this for the love of it. There’s a fully botrytis affected bunch in my field of view – I taste it to see its OK. Its nice. Really nice. Dry botrytis. Intensely apricotty. The pips are ripe. Its like eating a Riesling paste (hmmm – Auburn Wines, Auburn Jelly, Auburn Paste???). I take this bunch to add to this year’s Auburn Lowburn Riesling.

And that’s what wine is about for me.

This gem from Dr Loosen is a lovely wine from a Mosel vintage that doesn’t seem to get a lot of airplay. I make no secret of my scepticism of Dr Loosen, althogh what he does in Erden is something else.  I’ve looked at this vineyard across the river from the village of Erden, and its impossibly steep, even looking through a flyscreen…

And wow, it must be hard work to pick the grapes fro this - 70 degree slopes, nothing like the 15 degrees or so at Lowburn.

Getting expensive at $75 for a half bottle, but so worth it for the sweet tooths out there.

Cheers

Andrew