Rheingau Riesling of the 80’s

During the last years we tried a lot of wines from this well known producer because they are very reliable especially concerning older vintages. “Steigwein” means “auction wine”. Every year Kloster Eberbach auctions smaller lots of wines, which the producers consider to be special or at least very good. And as a proof this one here got everything a classic Riesling needs. Starting with a clean, pure and very bright golden yellow color and continuing with a blueprint of a mature Riesling nose with full ripe quinces, overripe crab apples and the “good” petrol scents. With further aeration the bouquet became more complex and spicier showing some warm rubber, honey combs and in the background some sage butter flavors. At the palate the wine still got a very tight and lively acidity which gave structure and balanced the good pressure until the very long finish. The residual sugar has been almost completely integrated and so they wine appeared rather dry but still very crisp. Simply animating, pure elegance. A real “mouth full” and far away of being on the way down. For me it is always surprising how well those wines age and how less alcohol you need to obtain this kind of tasty Riesling. Very good stuff !!

The only thing someone may critic here right from the start is that label just its designer can love and the old German problem of long, complicated wine names (in this case 72 letters !). Anyway. We don’t drink labels or names and therefore let’s talk about the wine itself. The first thing that caught our attention by pouring the wine in our glasses has been its higher viscosity and again a very bright, intense golden color without any brown tinge. The nose has been slightly different from the first wine but also immediately recognizable as a mature Riesling. Lots of dried apricots, again apples and honeycombs but this time right from the start with more spice, more notes of brown butter, caramel, dried thyme and celery. Despite of ca. 20 g/l residual sugar also this wine appeared dry in the mouth and its racy, almost steely acidity enforced this impression. Like a river broke – crystal clear and fresh it flowed over our tongues offering also here all the richness from the nose until the very good finish where orange peels and soft, warm rubber flavors topped of a superb Riesling wine. Slender body but with force, intensity without giving up elegance and balance. Even if I have to repeat myself. This kind of wine is simply great. Another quite impressive thing has been the wine’s stability. From opening until the last drop it took us over three hours but the wine remained lively, intact and absolutely unimpressed about this intense aeration. Remember we are talking about an 25 years old white wine. In this shape and out of a good bottle I really would like to have this fellow again after, let’s say, another decade …

Another big name of Rheingau Riesling and here I have had to look several times at the label to be sure that we were talking about an ‘83 vintage. The optical appearance has been pretty similar to the Schloss Schönborn but what hit our noses has been another level. Riesling, mature Riesling par excellence. Loads of overripe apples and wild pears, dried fruits like apricots and banana chips, quince jelly and honey. All that framed by very shy, soft waxy petrol scents. Great ! In the mouth with a very high pressure and a pretty lush interaction of its still very present residual sugar and this “razor blade”, crystal clean Riesling acidity until an endless, pure, soft sweetish grape finish. A reason because of what those 28 years of time passed by without doing any harm to this wine is for sure the distinctly higher amount of residual sugar in combination with its solid, strong acidity. And this combo will assure in continue a very bright future for this wine. But also today the entire thing has been very complex and multilayered but in the same time so weightless animating and easy to drink. Simply a real pleasure without any signs of tiredness or exceeded aging. It should be forbidden to bottle such wines in something else than a Magnum or a even bigger bottle because once you started it’s hard to stop again .

The “youngster” and finalist in this quartet showed a very strong golden color with a soft amber tinge. It also formed out a small and harmless depot of bright white crystals (Botrytis Cinerea) and proteins. I always point these things out because there are still plenty of persons out there which are scared and afraid of such appearances. But believe me that there’s no reason at all. The rich nose has been typical but concerning me and compared to the other three wines it wasn’t this pure and clean . In the beginning of course a lot of intense apricots, seabuckthorn, honey, oranges and caramel scents but with time slight stale scents like in an old cellar became present in the background. Other signs of age like brown apples and furniture polish, the “bad” petrol, joined later, too. At the palate very racy and straight with a still bold but well integrated and tamed sweetness until the very long aftertaste with decent oranges and pie plant flavors. But also here after a while notes of brown apples and burned sugar showed up interspersed by soft moldy scents. In the end it has been still a good wine and this may appear as complaining on a very high level but the wine has been affected of some kind. I think we were dealing here with a creeping cork taint and not with a too aged wine or another defect because all the other parameters appeared quite well.