Well, I did not get my lazy ass in gear as usual and the 2010's are being tasted and all the buzz is about the 2010's and I still have Von Buhl, Rebholz, Burklin Wolf, Pfeffingen, Heger and Laible to report on for '09. I think I'll combine them into one post soon to get it out of the way. There were some excellent wines in there for sure. With that being said though the 2010's are electric wines. I just went and tasted my first batch at Tribeca Grill as Rudipalooza happened there this past Tuesday.
It is a CRAZY vintage and I write crazy in capital letters as I have never tasted wines like this, especially in the Mosel and the Nahe. The keys to this vintage are electric acidities and as a result many producers had to de-acidify, which is extremely rare in Germany, and I am not sure how I feel about it as I tasted some from both schools and for my palate, and knowing I am an acid freak, the wines left with their natural acidities, whilst being high, were some of the greatest young Mosel/Nahe wines I have ever tasted. There also was huge ripeness and ridiculous must weights and not much botrytis, which results in incredibly complex wines right out of the gate. Another key is there ain't much of these wines as yields were way way down. I mean Schloss Lieser absolutely blew me away. Thomas Haag always makes killer wines, but he outdid himself in 2010. His Estate Kabinett is just a freak show. Like Grand Cru Kabinett. Tim Frohlich who has been making profound wines since 2003, and wines that outdo the previous vintage every year since, rocked the house in 2010 with electric, chiseled wines, dripping with minerality. Maybe my favorite fruity-styled wines from him ever. The GG's are supposedly amazing too and I hope to taste them this summer which brings me to another point. Dry wines, although I did not taste many, were very hit and miss and acidities were mostly too high to make them successful. Schonleber made some killer ones but not up to '09 quality at all. '09 is the dry wine vintage to pay attention to. When I was talking to Bert Selbach of Dr. F. Weins Prum, who made scintillating 2010's, he said he made no dry wines at all in 2010 because of these high acidities, which is amazing as he makes some very fine, albeit sometimes severe, dry wines every year in the Middle Mosel. His
2009's in the dry category were sensational. His sweeter style wines and his feinherb were absolutely bonkers. His 2010 Graacher Himmelreich Kabinet Feinherb, the driest he went in 2010 made me forget he did not make dry wines. Bert is a reserved guy and was absolutely beaming about his 2010's. They were sensational with 9-10+ grams of acidity for his feinherb, kabinett and spatlesen. The Wehlener Sonnenuhr Kabinett and Auslese were just electric wines with vivid fruit, tremendous complexity and some of the more compelling, razor sharp version of WS I have ever had from Bert. He said his Erdener Pralat Auslese has 10.7 grams of acidity in 2010. That is nuts. The richness of these wines combined with the blazing acidities made these like nothing I have ever tasted. I had no reference point. The finish was like pop rocks of Riesling. Bert Selbach continues his amazing consistent streak of great vintages and too bad his wines don't get the attention they deserve in the States.
Monchoff. Hmmmmmmm. They usually are great Mosel 101 wines but there was definitely some de-acidification going on here as the wines just seemed flat and uninspiring. Too bad. I did love the Erdener Pralat Auslese which was clean and rich with a pretty electric finish. Maybe this was not de-acidified? Dunno. Then again I am an Erdener Pralat slut.
So those are my initial thoughts.
Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/blogspot/QLLL/~3/fy9LdD8_c7A/2010-germany-actual-vintage.html
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