German Catalog 2006 USE THIS ONE.qxp - Michael Skurnik Wines

MITTELRHEIN WINES
92
Bacharach, but these lie 35km distant, and Florian’s wondering
whether to renew their lease. I really hope he
does, and I really really hope you’ll help me by buyin’ a
BUNCH of that gorgeous wine, so we can get it every
year and put it on the core-list.
weingart at a glance:
Weingart is another who went into rapture over the
quality of 2005 fruit. “It was the best botrytis we’ve ever
seen in the last 10 years, especially in the first half of picking,”
he said.
A risen star on the Mittelrhein with the advent of
young Florian Weingart at the helm. Still-good value
for in-your-face fruity-minerally steep-slope wine.
how the wines taste: They’re urgent above all; these are wines that move, that
push and pull on the palate. Then tropically fruity, vanilla,
papaya, mango in the ripest wines. With the 1996 vintage a new minerality came;
you feel it on the sides of the palate, and it sets up a call-and-response of fruit and stone
that keeps you returning to the wine just when you were done attending to it. These are
smiling, cheerful wines, but now perhaps with a fundamental intelligence that makes
you want to spend lots of time with them.
GAW-079 2005 Schloss Fürstenberg Riesling Kabinett +
It shows its prototypical kirsch fragrance, with slate and wisteria; the palate is a giddy
mineral display, snappy and fine-boned, as if hyacinths are opening in your mouth; a
shower of terroir, spice and blossom on the long, gripping finish.
SOMMELIER ALERT! SOS: 2 (7-25 years)
GAW-078 2005 Bopparder Hamm Engelstein Riesling Spätlese Feinherb
A classy and elegant fragrance, mutsu apples and Mirabelle and clean-botrytis talc; the
shimmery palate blends asian pear, mineral and white nectarine; charming finish of slate
and vanilla; it’s another wine that stopped fermenting with low-30s residual sugar, so it’s
the descendant of last year’s Anarchie, a really ideal Riesling and/or a Riesling Ideal.
SOMMELIER ALERT! SOS:1 (now-3 years, again 15-22 years)
GAW-080 2005 Schloss Fürstenberg Riesling Spätlese ++
I’m not sure that pure fruit can improve on this! A fervid minerality is engulfed by cherry-blossom
and wisteria; the wine is as firm as a steel rod and as perfumed as a golden
dream. A haunting, delicate ecstacy; unforgettable.
SOS: 2 (9-27 years)
GAW-081 2005 Bopparder Hamm Feuerlay Riesling Auslese*
This year I took the riper toastier one. I often don’t. 2005 is partly about this warm,
sweet malt, morel, smoky old-bush tea thing with the salty iron below. No sense trading
down! This is partly normal fruit at 96º with 25% BA at 152º!
SOS: 3 (15-35 years)