Re: WTN:Kesselstatt Scharzhofberger Spatlese 05 & 1971 Wine Laws
Posted: Wed Apr 09, 2008 7:03 am
Hey - Waldorf here...
I like quite a lot of what Jean proposes, but I would not leave the rules around kabinett, spatlese, auslese, etc. unchanged. I think it's time for the oeschle levels to have some teeth and really mean something. First of all the levels for kabinett are too low. Let's take them from as low as 70 (it varies regions to region and grape to grape by the way - another silly flaw) for kabinett to the following ranges for all pradikats:
75 - 90 kabinett - no/negligible botrytis allowed
85 - 100 spatlese
95 - 120 auslese
120 - 160 beerenauslese
>160 - TBA
Yes I am showing ranges for the pradikats. There has to be a way to stop the high-grade auslese in a bottle of kabinett phenomenon. I do show someoverlap in the ranges, as various producers have various styles. This would at least put a halt to something I ran across twice in 2006 - Riesling of over 100 oeschle sold as kabinett.
I never thought of imposing upper levels on oeschle until I met with Nik Weis of St. Urbans Hof. He and I had a great conversation about typicity and the fact that it means something. I would not want some panel saying "this wine is atypical - no pradikat," but rather set a framework.
Oh and the levels for QbA are ridiculous - as low as 57 degrees oeschle. That's not worth drinking.
I like quite a lot of what Jean proposes, but I would not leave the rules around kabinett, spatlese, auslese, etc. unchanged. I think it's time for the oeschle levels to have some teeth and really mean something. First of all the levels for kabinett are too low. Let's take them from as low as 70 (it varies regions to region and grape to grape by the way - another silly flaw) for kabinett to the following ranges for all pradikats:
75 - 90 kabinett - no/negligible botrytis allowed
85 - 100 spatlese
95 - 120 auslese
120 - 160 beerenauslese
>160 - TBA
Yes I am showing ranges for the pradikats. There has to be a way to stop the high-grade auslese in a bottle of kabinett phenomenon. I do show someoverlap in the ranges, as various producers have various styles. This would at least put a halt to something I ran across twice in 2006 - Riesling of over 100 oeschle sold as kabinett.
I never thought of imposing upper levels on oeschle until I met with Nik Weis of St. Urbans Hof. He and I had a great conversation about typicity and the fact that it means something. I would not want some panel saying "this wine is atypical - no pradikat," but rather set a framework.
Oh and the levels for QbA are ridiculous - as low as 57 degrees oeschle. That's not worth drinking.