German Trocken?

[David M. Bueker]

Of course I would not hold Selbach-Oster up as a star in trocken Riesling. (I do really like their Zeltinger Himmelreich Kabinett Halbtrocken though.)

As a general rule I go outside the Mosel in my search for dry wines.

A good friend of mine has really grabbed a great range of German rieslings for importing into Australia. He had his first major tasting of the year last night. Among the Trocken he had on offer was a Schafer-Frohlich Bockenauer Felseneck Trocken (single vineyard). I could happily drink this on a regular basis.

I was also really interested to discover the Feinherb style of rieslings, something completely new to me. IN this regard, I really liked the Reinhard & Beate Knebel Winninger Brückstück Riesling Feinherb 2007, Reinhard & Beate Knebel Winninger Hamm Riesling Kabinett Feinherb 2007 and Willi Schaefer Graacher Himmelreich Spatlese Feinherb 2007.

As he had about 20-30 from the 2007 vintage open, other favourites included the Schmitges Estate Riesling, Reinhold Haart Piesporter Domherr Spätlese, Schloss Lieser Niederberg Helden Spätlese, Schmitges Erdener Treppchen Spätlese and Reinhard & Beate Knebel Winninger Röttgen Auslese.

[PS if you are looking for a decent Aussie riesling don't overlook the Petaluma Hanlin Riesling. Best with 3-4 years bottle age like most Australian riesling. Personally I won't drink them inside this time frame if humanly possible]

A good friend of mine has really grabbed a great range of German rieslings for importing into Australia. He had his first major tasting of the year last night. Among the Trocken he had on offer was a Schafer-Frohlich Bockenauer Felseneck Trocken (single vineyard). I could happily drink this on a regular basis.

I was also really interested to discover the Feinherb style of rieslings, something completely new to me. IN this regard, I really liked the Reinhard & Beate Knebel Winninger Brückstück Riesling Feinherb 2007, Reinhard & Beate Knebel Winninger Hamm Riesling Kabinett Feinherb 2007 and Willi Schaefer Graacher Himmelreich Spatlese Feinherb 2007.

As he had about 20-30 from the 2007 vintage open, other favourites included the Schmitges Estate Riesling, Reinhold Haart Piesporter Domherr Spätlese, Schloss Lieser Niederberg Helden Spätlese, Schmitges Erdener Treppchen Spätlese and Reinhard & Beate Knebel Winninger Röttgen Auslese.

[PS if you are looking for a decent Aussie riesling don't overlook the Petaluma Hanlin Riesling. Best with 3-4 years bottle age like most Australian riesling. Personally I won't drink them inside this time frame if humanly possible]

Sounds like a very cool lineup Mark. I've tried a few of the Knebel wines, found the sweeter ones boring but the 07 feinherb from Bruckstuck was really fascinating and enjoyable. Schafer-Frohlich and Lieser are doing some great stuff as well these days. Glad to know some good German wine (beyond the usual big names like Prum and Donnhoff) is making its way down under.

Thanks for the Petaluma recco, although right now I'm holding off on buying any more Aussie Riesling - having just picked up a case of the 08 Frankland Estate Rieslings recently (opened a Poison Hill Vyd some time ago, fantastic stuff - and planning to open an Isolation Ridge in the next week or so) and some stuff from Tasmania.

Sounds like a very cool lineup Mark. I've tried a few of the Knebel wines, found the sweeter ones boring but the 07 feinherb from Bruckstuck was really fascinating and enjoyable. Schafer-Frohlich and Lieser are doing some great stuff as well these days. Glad to know some good German wine (beyond the usual big names like Prum and Donnhoff) is making its way down under.

Thanks for the Petaluma recco, although right now I'm holding off on buying any more Aussie Riesling - having just picked up a case of the 08 Frankland Estate Rieslings recently (opened a Poison Hill Vyd some time ago, fantastic stuff - and planning to open an Isolation Ridge in the next week or so) and some stuff from Tasmania.

Yeah I think my friend as grabbed a great selection just as people are really starting to experiment down under with German rieslings. He spends a serious amount of time over there each year and when the recent WS article on top german rieslings came out, he had managed to corner a third of the top wines. As I believe I have said before, one thing that I really enjoy about this forum is the depth of knowledge on what is for me a very new area of interest.

Re the Franklin Poison Hill, I keep seeing really good things about this and should try and track some down. The other Aussie riesling that seems to have a real buzz about it is the Mesh Rieslings. I saw David Lole gave it a good wrap and it is also on the list of things to track down, together with 100 other wines that one must try

Mark

Hi all, I'm a lurker more than a poster these days.

I saw this same importers wines In Brisbane, a slightly smaller range on show I think. Schafer Frohlich showed well across the board, and the thing that struck me across the whole range - Schloss Lieser, Schafer, Schmitges, Knebel, Haart, Schonleber - was that there were no truly bad wines among them. Everyone seemed to like something different, and some wines were tasty if technically not perfect - I tasted beside Tyson Stelzer which was illuminating in that regard!

I also enjoyed the Feinherbs and some of the better trockens, which is not my normal territory. That made the afternoon worth the effort alone.

cheers

Andrew

Andrew

I am glad you said that. I went through the selection writing down lovely next to virtually every wine I tried. At the end, I wondered whether my palate was just off for the day since each one seemed a gem and go the Feinherbs!

Mark

I went through the selection writing down lovely next to virtually every wine I tried. At the end, I wondered whether my palate was just off for the day since each one seemed a gem and go the Feinherbs!

That's hardly surprising Mark; most of those producers you named - Schaefer, Haart, Schonleber, S-F, Knebel, Lieser, etc - range from very good to downright brilliant (Schaefer and Schonleber), and I reckon many of them would feature in any discussion of top German winemakers to seek out right now. David Bueker and I had discussed this recently - there are a lot of really good producers in Germany right now who're making fantastic wine, to the point that it's really hard to keep following a lot of them. There are a whole number I'd love to buy more of and explore further, but we're being spoiled for choice there these days. Good time to be a Riesling drinker.

Salil do you or David have any experience in cellaring the Feinherbs? Are they a drink now style or will they handle 5, 10 or more years in the cellar?

[David M. Bueker]

Mark,

Feinherb is a fairly new style, but Iwould think they could handle the usual 5+ years of cellaring I give almost every German wine.

Of course I drink them so fast that it doesn't really matter.

Feinherb means (more or less) halbtrocken = half dry

Feinherb is not described in the winelaw and therefore it wasn`t allowed to print it on the label - before some vintners from the Moselle won a court decision to do so(Link german wikipedia)

[David M. Bueker]

The thing about feinherb is that its quasi-legal status allows the winemaker so much more freedom that the half baked (and formally regulated) halbtrocken. I've had feinherb Rieslings with 7 grams of sugar and with 35 grams of sugar. It's all about balancing the acidity so that the wine finishes relatively dry.

Guys thanks for the very helpful feedback.
Mark

Salil do you or David have any experience in cellaring the Feinherbs? Are they a drink now style or will they handle 5, 10 or more years in the cellar?

I would not want to generalize too broadly over a cathegory of wines. It depends... Most Feinherb wines are made in the lower end, I would say. QbA, some Kabinett, less Spätlesen. The intention of the wine maker is thus normally to make a wine that is good for immediate consumption. That won't prevent many of them to go some distance.

Peter

Hi Peter,

it seems to me that "feinherb" more and more is used simply as a replacement for "halbtrocken". I would guess what applies for "halbtrocken"s regarding ageability should transfer to "feinherb".

Since "feinherb" is a recent fashion, I guess there is very limited experience with aging "feinherb"s.

Winfried

[David M. Bueker]

Winfried,

Feinherb is used over a much broader range of wines than halbtrocken ever was (see above). Some are certainly halbtrocken, but others have (I have some data) much more residual sugar & seem more like spatlese from earlier years where the sweetness was not so pronounced as it has been lately.

David,

this is not contradictory to what I wrote. I have some feinherbs that legally could not be called halbtrocken.

What I was referring to is that e.g. the Bischöfliche Weingüter completely replaced their halbtrockens with feinherbs. It may be questionable whether this is a trend.

Winfried