WTN: Feast of Flavor

[David M. Bueker]

Salil came for dinner last night & cooked! He made some lovely rice, chicken kebabs & a great chick pea dish with tomato and onion. Of course we had some wine as well.

2002 F.X. Pichler Riesling Smaragd Steinertal
Leftovers from Salil's Wednesday evening bacchanal were still quite good, though not vibrant. Really the bones of Riesling here, but there's nothing wrong with examining the skeleton of great wine.

2004 Donnhoff Norheimer Dellchen Riesling Spatlese (auction bottling)
Salil acquired this from Dee Vine, and as has been the case with other bottlings through the gray market, I am not certain that it was treated all that well through its life. Nevertheless the wine showed abundant fruit, a dark honey tinge from botrytis and good structure. I did find it a bit tired on the back end, and developing more old age character than maturing character.

1998 Muller Catoir Haardter Mandelring Scheurebe Spatlese
Opened with a lot of green fruit notes, but with air it recovered some of its youthful ripe tropical fruit elements. It never reached the tropical fruit orgy stage that this wine had in its youth, but then I never expected it to do that. If this was a first exposure to the wine then its showing would be phenomenal, but it's really like watching David Ortiz hit these days; sure he hits some great home runs, but it's not like the old days.

2007 Pierre-Marie Chermette/Vissoux Brouilly Perrieux
Very primary, red fruit and refreshment. Its youthful and exuberant fruit really worked with the food. Very tasty stuff.

2004 Donnhoff Norheimer Dellchen Riesling Spatlese (auction bottling)
Salil acquired this from Dee Vine, and as has been the case with other bottlings through the gray market, I am not certain that it was treated all that well through its life..

But I assume Dee Vine purchased it themselves at the auction and imported it themselves afterwards? And they always seemed pretty conscious of how to treat wine. Am I making some wrong assumptions here?

[David M. Bueker]

I don't know how they got it, but it's just yet another bottle from Dee Vine that didn't live up to what it should have been.

I don't know how they got it, but it's just yet another bottle from Dee Vine that didn't live up to what it should have been.

I don't know about this bottle but Dade is one of the biggest buyers at the German auctions. The older Donnhoffs they were selling that were the source of that disappointing tasting last year are probably a different story.

[David M. Bueker]

I don't know about this bottle but Dade is one of the biggest buyers at the German auctions.

Doesn't mean he takes care of them.

Thanks again David for having me over. A very fun, relaxed evening as always.
I stopped buying from Dee Vine some time ago after visiting them and finding their storage conditions quite unimpressive. I've had experiences with a handful of bottles that didn't seem to be in great condition - not just the old Donnhoffs from that Hermannshohle tasting, but others like a leaking '06 Weil Grafenberg and a couple of other relatively young bottles that were iffy. (I am just crossing fingers on the bottle of Donnhoff Eiswein I got from them that's sitting in David's basement.) It is a real shame as they do have a fantastic array of German wines to pick from.

As far as the wines go - the Dellchen was certainly tasty but as I mentioned to David during the evening - I found it rather underwhelming given both the performance of the regular (AP #11) Dellchen last year which I preferred greatly and particularly the reputation of the auction wine. Plenty of fruit and other flavours to enjoy as David said, just not near what it should have been.

I enjoyed the Catoir Scheurebe far more than David, probably because I've also not been spoiled by having that wine on release and my only other experience was at the start of this year. That said - given the ripe tropical fruit it was showing by the end of the night, I'm having a hard time picturing just how bright and fun that must have been in its youth. Still an incredibly tasty wine, and a very nice match with the food.

The Brouilly made it pretty clear that I need to explore Beaujolais a lot more. Basically as David described, really tasty with bright fruit and some musky, funky elements in the aromatics and really fun to drink with dinner. Any recommendations for other producers/bottlings that I should look for and try? I'll also add that the FX was holding up quite nicely after two days in the fridge - the fruit still holding up though not as exuberant as it was on Wednesday, with the Steinertal spice and mineral elements a little more pronounced.

Doesn't mean he takes care of them...I stopped buying from Dee Vine some time ago after visiting them and finding their storage conditions quite unimpressive...

Fair enough. If I understand correctly, most recent releases are stacked in the Pier which is much cooler than outside the Pier (having stood in the dark environs tasting riesling on many a sunny day I can attest to this), but as far as I can tell they are not controlled for humidity, swings in temp, etc. The more valuable wines however are in the temperature controlled containers/trailers stacked inside the Pier, and the storage conditions there should be fine.

[David M. Bueker]

Are the temp controlled containers turned on? It's nice to have them, but better to use them.

Are the temp controlled containers turned on? It's nice to have them, but better to use them.

I haven't been there in over a year but it was always pretty freezing inside when they took us in to oogle the goodies.

My 'impression' was always that Dee Vine was pretty serious about caring for their wines and I bought from them regularly from 2003-2008 (mostly recent release and stuff with 2-5 years of age) and never found a heat damaged bottle. But aside from what I've already said I don't really have much factual knowledge one way or another so I'll plead ignorance from here on out and leave it at that.