And yet again, the tasting group convenes: '07 German Riesling meets Brandenburg Concertos and Die Mensch Maschine

Hope you enjoyed the Kraftwerk video.

As you may have surmised from the above title, it was something of a celebration of all things glorious and of teutonic origin for my tasting group's most recent meeting tonight. I selected the highly regarded '07 German vintage as a theme, cooked up some brats, made some cabbage to accompany, and played JS Bach to thematically tie things together. Kraftwerk's Man Machine was requested (and shortly thereafter un-requested) by a few fellow group members. As for the wines, we all agreed that it was a very solid showing. I divided the seven wines into two flights: one trocken (dry) flight of 4 and a flight of three kabinetts.

FLIGHT ONE: Dry Riesling

There was a fairly strong divide between people's two least favorite wines, and their two favorites.

2007 Johannes Leitz Riesling Eins Zwei Dry

By a single point, this was the least favorite wine. Personally, I found the wine to be aromatically closed at first. With air, some tart, red autumn apples as well as yellow stone fruits emerged. The palate was very tangy, reminding me of tart yellow plums skins. Crisp and thirst quenching, but also, I feel, deemed a bit lean and one note by this tough crowd of folks mainly in the wine trade.

2007 Von Schubert Maximin Grunhauser Riesling QbA Trocken

This Ruwer riesling had a strong mineral stamp on the nose. It smelled funky and very slatey. The palate was earthy, soft, very textural, and a whole lot more mature tasting than its youth might suggest. Interestingly enough, the estate is one of the few non-interventionist ones in the Mosel-Saar-Ruwer. Native yeast fermentation, and judging by the style perhaps a relatively minimal dose of sulphur as well. Ultimately, while this was interesting, the austere dryness, pungent minerality and lack of fruit did not do much for me or many others in the group.

2007 Becker Landgraf Riesling Trocken

This up-and-coming Rheinhessen estate impressed many folks, with three first place votes and two seconds out of nine participants. Johannes and Julia, a husband and wife team, source grapes from particulalry chalky soils in the Rheinhess. They ferment using a 50-50 mix of indigenous and cultured yeast. I found a certain savor and harmonious quality to this wine's aromas. A definite mineral stamp, but not as overbearing or defining as on the Von Schubert. I was particularly taken with the effortless balance and purity of flavors.

2007 Weingut Ott Riesling Vom Rottem Schotter

Scandalous... the top finishing wine of this German focused Riesling tasting was actually an imposter, a ringer, an Austrian wine! I'd be crying foul, except for the fact that Ott's wines are so delicious and in this particular case show so incredibly well out the gate. Some comments from my colleagues: 'Great depth,' 'Good weight and richness,' 'characteristic petrol notes.' We all agreed that this wine was the most expressive on this particular evening. This is made from biodynamically farmed grapes grown in a vineyard in the Wagram region of Austria (due west of Vienna, just before you reach the Kamptal, Kremstal, and Wachau).

FLIGHT 2: The Kabinetts

Given budgetary restraints, as well as the fact that 2007 is such a classic vintage, perfect for Kabinett production, I decided to select a few Kabinetts for the off-dry portion of this evening's tasting.

2007 Von Schubert Maximin Grunhauser Estate Riesling

As with the trocken, this wine had a decidedly slatey mineral stamp. It's a dry kabinett, smelling of browning apples left out on the counter. It has a creamy mid palate, with broad, funky, lighter flavors relative to many German Kabinetts. This wine showed completely, utterly apart from the other Kabinetts. More oxidative winemaking, combined with the unique Ruwer terroir, perhaps?

2007 JJ Prum Wehlener Sonnenuhr Riesling Kabinett

Though this had an equal amount of points as the Schubert, it garnered more first place votes, and as a result placed higher. While some folks thought that this was textbook Riesling, complete and offering up everything a classic young Kabinett should, others took issue with the noticeably reductive state (it is a JJ Prum wine, after all). Nevertheless, I would fall into the fans of Prum camp. Yes, they are pricey wines, doused with sulphur along every single step of the winemaking process, etc. But they also have a certain power, depth of flavor, and typicity that scream Mosel Riesling, and more specifically that perfectly recall their respective vineyard sites.

2007 Selbach Oster Zeltingger Riesling Kabinett

Fans of this wine claimed that it had all the elements I found in the Prum. While I enjoyed this, it was simply on the level of a solid, quaffable, off-dry riesling. Nothing too evocative, complex, or thought provoking. A solid wine for salads, seafood, or various Asian cuisines (with apologies for the cliched suggested off-dry riesling pairings, if you're reading, Lyle).

So there you have it. Another PMW group tasting in the books. Hopefully we can settle on a date for the next one and get back in the swing of monthly tastings. Thanks to all those who came out and participated on a rainy Sunday night in the city. Special shout out to guests Catherine and Josh (who showed on short notice and with an early morning inventory to deal with tomorrow) as well as Susan, my co-worker from Birmingham (England, not Alabama) who lent her considerable nosing and tasting talents to the group.

Leeks sauteed in butter, salt, pepper and grated nutmeg over toasted bread, with defaced bottle of one-time Rheinhessen riesling, Austria-tized.

Theise '07 German/Austrian Tasting - West Coast Edition

This is far from thorough. I still would like to put down a few thoughts on the wines and the vintage, with many gaping holes since I came far from tasting everything. For instance, I didn't taste any reds because I didn't feel like it. The fact that I tasted as many of these in the middle of a day off while, still trying to catch up from being away for a few weeks, re-confirmed both my choice of profession and my tolerance for tooth enamel punishment. It's a Terry Theise tasting though; so of course I wouldn't think of missing it. Terry's work is the reason why I have had the chance to taste such a variety of wines from Germany and Austria without travelling to either country. It could have just as easily been Rudi Wiest, but I sold Terry's wine back in the day, and besides Rudi's wines are tougher to find around Baltimore and DC where my formative drinking years took place.

Germany first. I really like the acidity of 2007. In many cases it is in terrific balance with fruit and sugar, and in my favorite wines there is a real crackle to the acidity, more so than in '06 or '05, which I would describe as juicier and maybe a touch less malic? That being said, there were some wines which were missing the power and richness of '06 and '05, or the prettiness and detailed minerality of '02. Overall it seemed like a better than average vintage - enjoyable wines where the peaks, from what I tasted anyway, were Rheingau trocken wines and Donnhoff. Favorites included Leitz's Eins Zwei 3 Dry Riesling (a dry fruit cocktail nose with intense mouthfilling fruits), the Rudeshmeimer Berg Kaisensteinfel Alte Reben (more austere, mineral, detailed, lime, tough to pin-point fruits) and a Toni Jost Bacharacher Hahn Kabinett (does Burt know that he has a village named after him?) that for some reason really impressed. It was a bright, lively combo of tropicality, some leesiness and tasty acidity to cut through it all. Of course the Willi Schaefer wines were great - I prefer Graacher Himmelreich to the Domprobst for its brighter, lighter, less smoky character. Christoffel...I wanted to like these wines more. Part of the problem is that they are so candied and sweet when young, which is usually fine because there is this amazing intensity of flavor. And I probably am missing something here, but I just did not care for them as much as I have the past two vintages.

Now Austria. Only tasted some gruner veltliner and a few assorted others, no riesling. '07 was meh, at least for gruner veltliner, especially following '06. Gobelsburg and Schrock still terrrific, my favorites being the Gobe Gruner Veltliner Steinsetz (bright, citric, clean, mineral for days) and Heidi Schrock's Furmint (explosive tart orange, almost like a bright racy tocai friulano). Nigl - surprisingly disappointing. Salomon Undhof - consistently good and solid value. My wine of the tasting (German or Austrian) was the '93 Gruner Veltliner Vinothek from Nikolaihof (Austria's first biodynamic winery, since '89 I believe). It had ripe citrus and plenty of creamy lees on the nose, with a soft, caressing, intense palate. I was so excited by the wine that I told Nikolas Saahs that it would probably prove to be, in my opinion, the wine of the day - yes I was one of 'those' people I'm embarrassed to say, but such was my level of excitement with the wine.

That's it, for now, there's dinner to prep.

The Group gets fancy; A flight of Gruve and '96 Echezeaux horizontal

Jerry outdid himself, or at least any other previous tasting group event I have attended. There was a selection of cheeses, duck that Jerry himself hunted (smoked and then a delicious duck leg confit with polenta and mushrooms), a flight of mostly 2006 gruner veltliner (by nearly all accounts a terrific vintage in Austria), and the piece de resistance, a line-up of 1996 Echezeaux. I'd say it's safe to assume that the majority of our group, myself included, has had precious little tasting experience of grand cru burgundy, let alone aged grand cru burgundy from a great, if controversial, vintage. So it was both a treat and a great tasting lesson. For anyone out there who is not already in a tasting group, but wants to learn about wine, get yourself in one. There is no better or more enjoyable way to learn about wine than to pool together financial and knowledge resources with a group of friends and colleagues.

Flight the first was humbling. The wines were all very generous and full of fruit, with a good dose of minerality in one of the wines, probably two in fact. The others seemed so fruity and simple, that I was thinking that the flight was a riesling around the world type flight. My favorite wine was a trocken riesling from the Rheingau, and the others were surely rieslings from elsewhere. Well, I was wrong. All old world wines, all gruner veltliner. Here are the wines, ranked in reverse order of group preference:

2006 Jager Gruner Veltliner Federspiel, Wachau
This was full of apples and a talcum type of minerality. I have 'good california riesling' in my notes; maybe I was thinking Montelena or Stony Hill or something.

2006 Stadt Krems Gruner Veltliner, Kremstal

Yellow stone fruits. My least favorite wine; it came across as one-dimensional.

2006 Nigl Gruner Veltliner Senftinberger Piri

Here was a wine with more minerality, higher toned acidity, an much precision. "Focused and laser-like" were some other descriptors mentioned (before the wine was revealed). These are words that are often used to describe Martin Nigl's wines.

2005 Salomon Undhoff Gruner Veltliner
There was a very creamy, leesy aspect to this wine, coupled with very high acidity and what I perceived at the time to be a slate type of minerality. What impressed me about this wine was how different it showed from the others. Surely it must have had at least 3-4 more years of bottle age. Interestingly, I have noticed once before that Salomon's gruner veltliners are good short to mid-term agers. They do seem to age fairly quickly though - maybe both instances have been cases of poor storage in the wine shop?

If the white wine flight was humbling, than the red flight was both humbling and baffling. Chalk it up to our collective inexperience with Echezeaux, or Vosne-Romanee from 1996. Only one person guessed that we were tasting Burgundy, here. Such was the intriguing combination of ripe, juicy, supple fruit, high acidity and more than partial integration of tannins. I found two of the wines to be soft and succulent, one wine to be a bid more advanced and less delicious than the others, and another to be simple, superficial and short. Once again, the wines from last to first:

1996 Domaine Robert Arnoux Echezeaux

I thought that this was supposed to be a solid producer. This wine had some mixed red/dark fruits on the nose, with a bit of horseradish and cooked black cherry. There was not the liveliness on the palate experienced in my two favorites of the night. Either the wine is in a dumb phase or it was poorly stored.

1996 Mongeard-Mugneret Echezeaux

Third with the group, but a clear second for me. Cherry liqueur, red fruits and a bit of orange peel on the nose led to a palate full of cherry, brighter than what the nose would suggest. Still very primary in its development.

1996 Domaine de Perdrix Echezeaux

Second with the group, an easy 4th placer for me. This wine was just too slick. Dark and concentrated nose, with some oak spice. But not much else. Soft, juicy and simple blackberry fruits on the palate. Tannins are fully resolved. Short finish. Here is a great example of how a grand cru burgundy, even from a good vintage, ain't a guarantee of quality. Far from it.

1996 Mongeard-Mugneret Grands Echezeaux

This was the clear favorite, and for good reason. While it's still very primary, the fruit is of such an intense, elegant, and long lasting quality. Delicious wine that absolutely provides the tough to describe grand cru burgundy tasting experience. True to reputation, this was by far superior to MM's very solid Echezeaux.

Wine tasting is a funny thing. While experience and context are very important, the wine, as Terry Theise (importer of our two top finishing gruner veltliners) likes to say, 'will have the last word.' Profound, I know.