German Riesling Tasting

My taste buds are fine again, I think, but this is one from the vault: a tasting which happened two months ago. 

The tasting was structured in such a way that at first Kabinett-type wines were tasted, followed by GG (Grosses Gewaechs). All major German regions were represented. The first flight was young wines, the second was of five to six year old wines. Points were given for the favourite wines of the night.

The most highly rated wine ended up to be the 2015 Heymann-Loewenstein Uhlen Roth Ley, Mosel.

This wine impressed with a very complex palate, depth and its full mouthfeel. Despite richer characters, such as hazelnut, the wine had energy and minerality, reflecting the very special terroir of red slate on steep terraces. 

The second place was shared between the 2018 Robert Weil Kiedrich Turmberg, Rheingau and the 2015 Reichsrat von Buhl Jesuitengarten, Pfalz. Both wines shared notes of white flower, but were otherwise quite different from each other. The Robert Weil wine is quite austere, complex, yet linear, with a long finish. There was similarity to a top level Clare Riesling, in my view. The Jesuitengarten was a bigger wine, quite powerful, with citrus and stone fruit flavours, and a riper expression of a dry Riesling.

In third place, or fourth place if you like, came in the 2019 Egon Mueller Scharzhof Riesling. This is a remarkable winemaker with a remarkable property on a bend of the Saar (now labeled Mosel). The purity of the fruit of this slightly off-dry wine was amazing. It was already very complex for such a young wine, very fresh, with passion fruit standing out. The wine was slightly perplexing. It had great energy, even though the acidity seemed quite low.

This tasting demonstrated the rich landscape of German Riesling with quite different expressions depending on soil, winemaker, and region. It seems to me that Australian Riesling is pretty much cut from one cloth (with the exception of Frankland Estate perhaps), whereas this variety has so much to offer.