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

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MOSEL WINES 56 it’s confusing. Meulenhof (pronounced MOY-LEN-HOFE, not mew-len-hoff) it shall henceforth and forever be.) The great site here is Erdener Treppchen. There’s a good parcel in Wehlener Sonnenuhr, part of Frau Justen’s dowry. There is a piece of the newly enlarged Prälat, for which a higher price is asked. Justen’s piece of Treppchen contains very old vines on their own rootstocks, or did until these venerable vines were cruelly uprooted for Flurbereinugung. Maybe that’s why Stefan Justen was almost comically distraught about his `05s; he remembers how the wines were from old vines. I visited with Johannes Selbach who said afterward “He’s too honest,” but I find it refreshing. I quite unequivocally disagree with Stefan about his `05s, mind you, but it’s such a relief to not be “political” and to just talk as colleagues. In fact 2005 seems to me to be Stefan’s best vintage since `01. He will shake his head ruefully when he reads this, as it’s become a running joke between us that we never agree about his wines. Stefan seems to like them bigger and fruitier while I like them slatier and cooler. In fact his `05s are atypical for the vintage and atypical for Justen: they have unusual restraint and polish for `05, and they are remarkably consistent for this grower whose other vintages have shown more peaks and valleys. 2005 is the first vintage where every single cask was good, and in some instances I truly couldn’t “select” among them. “Ah, just ship us numbers 14 and 21, or you know, 8 or 11, or well any of them really . . .” Often after making the rounds through the new vintage, a Mosel grower will bring out a few wormy-looking bottles from his Sanctorum. These are always given to taste blind, and one is encouraged to guess the vintage and quality level, all in a spirit of fun. Protocol requires one to make suitably delighted noises, but that rarely presents a problem! No, where I’m concerned the problem is usually how to prevent Terry from babbling like a besotted galoot. One year we had two wines, a lively and intricate 1979 Spätlese which was sensually all kinds of fun. The second wine, though, had us all silenced with perplexity and awe. It wasn’t a vintage whose signature I knew. I eliminated a range of unlikely choices and finally wrote a plausible Meulenhof at a glance: ate for impeccable quality. guess. I thought it might be a light, atypically firm 1959. Stefan finally said “This wine is exactly fifty years old, a 1951 Auslese,” and we were melted with wonder. This is what I wrote in my notebook: “This 1951 Auslese is flashing a shiny green tooth of acidity and freshness and is gleaming and mysterious and haunting. It’s like a shirt that’s hung in a fragrant wooden closet, not worn for years, your father’s perhaps, and one day you put it on and there it all is, him, his body, the time when he was alive, the boy you were then. We swim without cease in a strange bright ether. Light is gleaming and swaying always near us. If we breathe too deep we will die of a joy we aren’t built to bear. Just a tiny gasp.” We say our goodbyes too quickly after such an event. Perhaps someone will show these words to Stefan Justen, so he will know how honored I am to share such a wine with him, and how I remember each drop, always. Last year, as if to up the ante, Stefan brought out a ‘51 Spätlese. The wine was dry, forest-floor, birchy, shellfish-stock, leathery and avuncular, juicy, long and delicious and with a deep soulful complexity. You get a shock to the soul with a wine like this. A good shock, of course. But there you are, being a Wine Professional, doing bizniz, assigning item codes and securing quantities, and out comes a wine like this and suddenly you’re plunged from the brittle surface on which you’ve been skating into the deep warm waters below. You need soulbones made of rubber—a kind of spiritual Gumby—to manage the transition. Stefan brings out not just a lovely old wine, but also a wine his father made before Stefan himself was born. As such it’s part of the family’s history and legacy, part of the vineyard’s history and legacy, and ultimately part of the earth’s history and legacy. It’s almost intimidatingly meaningful. If you go where it takes you, you won’t get any more work done that day! And you’re already late for your next appointment . . . . But, there is always the wine itself. When all our glasses were empty, I saw another few fingers of wine down in the dark bottle. “May I . . . ?” I asked. Certainly; help yourself. So I did something I doubt I could have done 10 or even 5 years ago. I just drank the wine. It was beautiful wine. I knew damn well how spiritually meaningful it was, but I opted to merely love the wine and let it love me back. Full-throttle fruit and serious stature characterize these ripe Mosel wines. Prices have remained moder- In general Justen’s wines are more lush and peachy than, how the wines taste: say, Merkelbach; not as stern as, say, Christoffel. They are comparatively straightforward and “easy” to understand because the fruit is overt and in-your-face. Even a cursory glance into that fruit, though, will reveal the proverbial Coat of Many Colors: interplays of flavor and texture that can be absorbing and rewarding. And the wines both keep and age. GJU-089 2005 Wehlener Sonnenuhr Riesling Kabinett Shows its usual sleek, pretty fruit, even a little diffident in the context of all these (sweetly!) pounding `05s; the classic herbal-balsam fruit is there, and the mid-palate sends an echoey coating of woodsy cask tones; it grows finer and richer with each sip. SOMMELIER ALERT! SOS:2 (8-22 years)
GJU-090 2005 Erdener Treppchen Riesling Kabinett CORE-LIST WINE. This is a blend of three Fuder (33, 37 and 4 if you must know); it has a crackery nose like Kavli rye-crisps (!) and redcurrant; slatey char; the palate is silky and bright, even minty; underlay of wet straw and spiced apple; crystalline and yet generous. Almost tastes like a Kabinett! SOMMELIER ALERT! SOS: 1 (8-22 years) GJU-091 2005 Erdener Treppchen Riesling Spätlese + Cask #36; the best, by a nose, of three possible casks by dint of its vividly appley-slatey brilliance and remarkable length; like a scarf of flavor you pull one end of and never reach the other; extends clear and unbroken until an echoey finish that slowly fades to slatey vapor. SOMMELIER ALERT! SOS: 2 (10-28 years) GJU-092 2005 Wehlener Sonnenuhr Riesling Spätlese CORE-LIST WINE. A cask of Auslese was sacrificed into this. Unusual rose and quince aromas with freesia and honeysuckle; palate is forthrightly fruity and a little phenolic; on the cool forest-shade end of the spectrum; another wine that expands, not metaphorically but actually on the palate. SOS: 2 (9-25 years) GJU-093 2005 Erdener Prälat Riesling Spätlese + Could be Justen’s best-ever wine from the Prälat; a smouldering fragrance of garrigue and quetsch; this is a very serious and solid rendering, with profundity and grip; it’s sometimes-sultriness has been ennobled into a kind of splendor; a Rheingauer in Mosel clothing. SOS: 2 (10-30 years) GJU-094 2005 Erdener Treppchen Riesling Auslese + Cask 28. A tangy, vibrant wine of amazing brighness and lift; aromas of tangerine and peche-de-vigne; gorgeous spicy length and lip-smacking acidity — there’s a word you won’t see often in notes for `05s. Leaves a minty, almost mentholated finish. SOS: 3 (10-30 years) GJU-095 2005 Erdener Treppchen Riesling Auslese ++ Cask 12. The most profound wine from Justen in some years; a wonderfully deep, almost inscrutable nose, apple-lime embedded in woodruff and burning-leaf; palate shows thunderous intensity and nimbus-depth but also a high note of celestial apple rides in on a gust front of freshness, so the palate whipsaws up and down and is finally amazed that a chord plays in so many registers. SOS: 3 ( 12-34 years) GJU-096H 2005 Erdener Treppchen Riesling TBA 12/375ml ++ Young TBA folks. But full of grace, elegance and clarity. I know I ought to froth and spume to justify the plusses, but come on; it’s young TBA, we know the flavors. It’s the elegance and clarity that make me sure. Taste and see. SOS: 4 (25-60 years) 57 MOSEL WINES
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terry theise estate selections Impo
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ii “Within every effort there has
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iv contents Theise Manifesto . . .
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vi LET US WRITE YOUR ORDER FOR YOU!
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2 These things coincided with a dec
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4 View of the Mosel. human care and
Page 14 and 15: 6 Continuing New Approach to Tastin
Page 16 and 17: 8 Making the Case For German Wines
Page 18 and 19: 10 I’m sure I didn’t convert th
Page 20 and 21: 12 Principles of Selection in this
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Page 24 and 25: 16 Core-List Wines The core-list, w
Page 26 and 27: 18 to know better) that the great d
Page 28 and 29: 20 How I Approach Wine, or Let Wine
Page 30 and 31: 22 time and lots of flavor. Due to
Page 32 and 33: 24 SHORT-LIST FOR ROCKHEADS: Dr Dei
Page 34 and 35: 26 “Antiques” 2001 has modestly
Page 36 and 37: 28 Ah but this isn’t P.C., you se
Page 38 and 39: 30 How German Wines Age To define a
Page 40 and 41: 32 Label Basics German labels are s
Page 42 and 43: 34 around until he gets fluent in t
Page 44 and 45: 36 Plusses and The Quest For Perfec
Page 46 and 47: 38 sommelier alert GSO-264 2005 Sel
Page 48 and 49: 40 subject: why riesling? A) Becaus
Page 50 and 51: 42 Treking up the Erdener Treppchen
Page 52 and 53: MOSEL WINES 44 Other Regionals from
Page 54 and 55: MOSEL WINES 46 could do was sit the
Page 56 and 57: MOSEL WINES 48 A Look At The Vineya
Page 58 and 59: MOSEL WINES 50 THE SPÄTLESEN GSO-2
Page 60 and 61: MOSEL WINES 52 SCHTICKIES! GSO-281
Page 62 and 63: MOSEL WINES 54 Erstwhile cellar-mas
Page 66 and 67: MOSEL WINES 58 alfred merkelbach mo
Page 68 and 69: MOSEL WINES 60 GME-135 2005 Ürzige
Page 70 and 71: MOSEL WINES 62 joh. jos. christoffe
Page 72 and 73: MOSEL WINES 64 GJC-146 2005 Erdener
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Page 76 and 77: MOSEL WINES 68 he elects not to.
Page 78 and 79: MOSEL WINES 70 a.j. adam mosel •
Page 80 and 81: MOSEL WINES 72 changing; enterprisi
Page 82 and 83: MOSEL WINES 74 reuscher-haart mosel
Page 84 and 85: MOSEL WINES 76 hoffmann-simon •Vi
Page 86 and 87: MOSEL WINES 78 weingut ansgar clüs
Page 88 and 89: 80 Does this self-evident truth rea
Page 90 and 91: MOSEL WINES 82 carl loewen mosel
Page 92 and 93: MOSEL WINES 84 carl schmitt-wagner
Page 94 and 95: MOSEL WINES 86 karlsmühle-geiben r
Page 96 and 97: 88 Is all taste equally valid? Sure
Page 98 and 99: 90 mittelrhein wines In 1900 there
Page 100 and 101: MITTELRHEIN WINES 92 Bacharach, but
Page 102 and 103: MITTELRHEIN WINES 94 jost at a glan
Page 104 and 105: 96 nahe wines It is a joy to labor
Page 106 and 107: NAHE WINES 98 dönnhoff nahe • ob
Page 108 and 109: NAHE WINES 100 vintage happens befo
Page 110 and 111: NAHE WINES 102 GDH-172 2005 Estate
Page 112 and 113: NAHE WINES 104 helmut mathern nahe
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106 the matter of “globalization
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NAHE WINES 108 jakob schneider nahe
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NAHE WINES 110 GJS-067 2005 Niederh
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NAHE WINES 112 Meddersheimer Rheing
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NAHE WINES 114 kruger-rumpf nahe
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NAHE WINES 116 GKF-099 2005 Scheure
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NAHE WINES 118 viti-and-viniculture
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NAHE WINES 120 THE AMAZING TRIO OF
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RHEINHESSEN WINES 122 j.u.h.a. stru
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RHEINHESSEN WINES 124 started to wo
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RHEINHESSEN WINES 126 THE PATERBERG
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RHEINHESSEN WINES 128 wagner-stempe
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RHEINHESSEN WINES 130 GWG-016 2005
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RHEINHESSEN WINES 132 weingut oekon
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RHEINHESSEN WINES 134 gernot gysler
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RHEINHESSEN WINES 136 christian-wil
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138 tasting versus drinking I once
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140 rheingau wines Recently Jancis
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RHEINGAU WINES 142 josef leitz rhei
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RHEINGAU WINES 144 Rüdesheim Viney
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RHEINGAU WINES 146 On August 4th, 2
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RHEINGAU WINES 148 I did, and liked
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150 why does place-specificity matt
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152 pfalz wines In the pretty walle
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PFALZ WINES 154 müller-catoir pfal
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PFALZ WINES 156 THE NOT-DRY WINES!
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PFALZ WINES 158 josef biffar pfalz
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160 scheurebe: what gives? Um, I ha
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PFALZ WINES 162 board; these were t
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PFALZ WINES 164 eugen müller pfalz
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PFALZ WINES 166 GEM-080H 2005 Forst
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PFALZ WINES 168 Messmers use only o
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PFALZ WINES 170 theo minges pfalz
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PFALZ WINES 172 GTM-093 2005 Gleisw
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PFALZ WINES 174 Well, guess again.
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PFALZ WINES 176 kurt darting pfalz
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PFALZ WINES 178 GDR-143 2005 Dürkh
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Back Cover Photo: Deer resting in t
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German Catalog 2006 USE THIS ONE.qxp - Michael Skurnik Wines

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