Good evening everyone,
COVID has thwarted yet another life milestone that would have merited a party, but with a little careful thinking- my 25th Anniversary as a devoted wine enthusiast was celebrated in good form.
On September 23, 1995, I came home from college for a night to see my parents and told my father I was interested in wine. A couple of weeks before, I had visited Centennial Liquors for the first time- an old school wine and liquor store at on Guadalupe just a couple of blocks north of the UT Austin campus and next door to the famed El Patio restaurant. My fellow UT Longhorns will remember it well. By the time I was visiting, the old wine manager had retired and the next generation was not caring for the bottles- but there were bins and bins of 20-30 year old Dom Perignon. A glass case with imperials of 1918 Latour and 1970 Mouton. A 1908 Chateau Talbot, and a whole wall of 1970s and 1980s Bordeaux. All cooked by that point- but what a fascinating sight that reminded me of growing up and Dad pulling bottles of fine wine out of the cellar for dinner parties, and taking me to the local wine store for tastings (and once to observe a competitive tasting.)
Dad smiled, pulled out a 1976 Chateau Lafite-Rothschild, and the rest is history.
Tonight should have been a bottle of Lafite- but bottles of mature Lafite are few and far between in my cellar these days, for obvious reasons. Opening one alone at home is unthinkable. And so I decided I needed a half bottle, preferably something low alcohol, and something very special- ideally something I have never tried. And then it hit me- Maximin Grunhauser Trockenbeerenauslese. I am a huge von Schubert fan- it is one of the biggest holdings in my cellar. But I have precious few bottles of their TBA. Even with my sourcing experience, it is not an easy find. And I have never opened one. And so here we go.
Cheers to 25 years of tasting wine- a good bit of that sharing stories, tasting notes and in-person wine dinners with so very many of you on this forum- anywhere from newly met here to people I have known since alt.food.wine days. Cheers to you all, and here is hoping for another 25 years of good bottles, good company and good times.
2010 Von Schubert Maximin Grünhäuser Abtsberg Riesling Trockenbeerenauslese
Decanted at 8AM and left in decanter for an hour, then placed back in half bottle for 10 hours unopened in the fridge and finally left on the counter for about 20 minutes to bring it up to proper temperature.
rich light gold color, a magnificent nose of pineapple, cream, marzipan and dark citrus with hints of deepest red rose petals, chopped herbs and figs, on the palate a wonderment- a Trockenbeerenauslese of greatest scale and volume, yet ethereal in presentation with its subtle layers of honey dripping down on one another over a cornucopia of tropical and citrus fruits, all of this culminates in a fig and rose driven impact on the palate of thunderous proportions leading into a ripping and intense finish of immense tension with lime acids interwoven with endless streams of honeyed orange that linger on the palate for several minutes, intense after-finish fragrance of roses, lilac and even a bit of honeysuckle - with some vibrant cut grass and earth notes, with time in glass the orange and lime peel notes on the mid-palate intensify giving this wine a tremendous vibrancy despite its great mass, impeccable balance, a succulent core of fig, blood orange and red berries lingers in the mind as a variety of floral sensations blossom aromatically on the finish, and as breathtaking as it is- this needs more time, at least a decade in my opinion, fun as it is in this muscular and unruly stage- with time this could well become one of the greatest German wines of our generation, a complete wine meant to be savored- it has taken me 3 hours just to get through 1/4 of the half bottle, [placeholder for additional comments 24 hours later], as good as it gets, one of the greatest wines ever tasted.
(*)+! A sixth star seems inevitable in time. 2030-2100+, this has the volume and pristine balance to last and delight for 100+ years.