To all Best Winers,
Now this is a pleasant surprise!
Whenever I go to Germany on business one of the real treats is getting to taste the older wines from some of these classic Riesling producers. So when I recently had the chance to taste something from Mosel master Max. Ferdinand Richter’s library, I was sure to clear some space on the old docket and get my Riesling on.
Let me lay it out for you. Fruity German Riesling ages like the dickens. I used to be consistently shocked at just how great wines that were 10, 20, 30 years old tasted when they were presented to me, until I eventually figured out this was the ‘norm’.
The ‘numbers’ on these wines are insane. No, I’m not talking about the scores from the pundits (though many of them do exceedingly well in that department). I’m talking about the technical winemaking numbers that indicate the amounts of residual sugar, total acidity, etc. in a bottle of wine.
When it comes to Riesling most of the ‘standard’ numbers in the wine industry are turned on their head. The make-up of these wines can sometimes almost seem impossible to folks in the winemaking field. This ‘impossible’ aspect to German Riesling is what gives it the ability to cellar for decades.
The combination of seriously bracing acidity and vibrant citrusy, juicy sweet fruit leads these wines down a unique path.
Take this wine for instance. This is the 1991 Max. Ferdinand Richter Graacher Himmelreich Riesling Kabinett.
Yes. 1991.
I was poured this wine the other day and fell in love all over again. It did the classic Old Mosel Riesling thing, simply looking and tasting like a wine a third its age, or younger! Still shimmering, loaded with green apple, mandarin, lime, slate, a little petrol (quite common with older Riesling), a touch of fragrant pine. A delight.
It was silky yet vibrant, mature but still youthful. Giving. And with the time in bottle the wine actually steers towards a drier feel on the palate. This may be one of the coolest, most versatile food wines you’ll pull the cork on, especially for the holiday fare that many of us will be cooking and serving.
We love the Richter family’s description of the ‘where’ for this wine and took the liberty of pulling a snippet from their website, with a few grammatical tweaks:
“In the Middle Ages, the Roman Catholic Church was by far the largest vineyard owner in Mosel. To this day, vineyard names there reflect that history. The Graacher Himmelreich (Kingdom of Heaven) vineyard, is a reference to the conditions in this precipitously steep site that produce truly ‘heavenly’ wine. With excellent southwestern exposure, the vineyards of Graach directly neighbor those of Wehlen. However, due to millions of years of alluvial deposits from the Mosel River, the Graach mountainside has a much richer, more fertile terroir, with an excellent water supply. The wines of Graach are thusly vigorous, juicy, mouth-filling and with broad shoulders, with lots of citrus, floral and dried herbal notes as well as a luscious complexity of minerals, slate and flint.”
Sounds great to me! Geek out with us. You know you want to. And, at $19.88 there are no excuses not to…
Kyle Meyer and Tristen Beamon, Proprietors, BestWinesOnline.com
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