Lunch with some lovely wines: a few TNs (Donnhoff and Goodfellow)

Great lunch today with a Flannery Jorge and two lovely wines

  • 2019 Dönnhoff Oberhäuser Leistenberg Riesling Kabinett - Germany, Nahe (6/13/2021)
    Bright stone fruit and citrus. Nectarines, rainier cherries. Green apples, lemon peel and pink grapefruit. Vey mineral; flinty and slightly chalky. Crushed rocks, white flowers. A bit rich for my taste as it is now. A few years in bottle will do nicely to round this out. A slight fizziness and and great acidity to balance it all. Makes the wine feel zippy and joyful on a hot summer day.

A somewhat simple kabinett, not overly complex, but but one that brings great joy to drink. Personally, I don’t see this as an ageless kabinett. It’s one that for sure will benefit from a 3-5+ years in the cellars to start rounding it out, but not one I imagine keeping for 20-30+ years. That’s not to say that it won’t bring me great joy to drink through my remaining bottles of this in a few years time.

ABV: 9%
Closure: Stelvin
Decant: 30min
Stem: Gabriel Glas StandArt
RS: 40g/L


While the aromatics made the wine seem open and inviting initially, the palate says it needs some more time. A bit austere and slightly disjointed at the start (though I do wonder how much of that was due to me recently brushing my teeth an hour prior to opening and tasting this, toothpaste does linger for a long while). After about two hours, the palate gained more depth and integrated some more, but it wasn’t until about 5h into it that the wine really started hitting its strides and firing on all cylinders. It gained much more depth and structure. The fruit became much more precise, tart, brambly and inviting. Ever-so slightly on the edge of ripe, as is the MO in most Goodfellow wines.

The palate and finish is what continued to draw me into this wine. Mouth coating and lip smacking fine grained tannins and acid. The tart red fruits linger on your palate unendingly, like just picked, barely ripe red berries still tinged with some soil.

The structure of the wine became intoxicating. It reminded me of one of Charles Cordier’s multi-medium marble sculptures. Beautiful, imposing, structured, filled with detailed nooks and crevices, multi -faceted and nuanced, chiselled with precision to last the ages. The more I paid attention to it, the more beguiling it became.

As with almost all Goodfellow wines, this needs time. I suspect this needs 5-7 more years on the cellar before revisiting to truly shine. I’m very glad to have multiple bottles of this because I’m eager to track this over the decades. Drink 2027-2050+

ABV: 13.4%
Closure: DIAM 10
Decant: ~6h
Stem: Gabriel Glas StandArt
From a small two-acre parcel in YC, all of old-vine Wadenswill clone PN. 55 cases produced.

FWIW, the 1999 and 2001 Leistenberg Kabinetts are still cruising along. I doubt the 2019 is any less age worthy.

No doubt this will age well. It’s got all the components for it, I find that most Donnhoffs do. It’s more like I don’t find myself personally wanting to age this particular wine very long term. I see myself holding onto it for 3-5 years and drinking it over the following 10. It’s just not one of those kabinetts that I find myself wanting to age for 30 years. Nothing wrong with that, it’s by no means a comment of the quality of the wine, it’s delicious. I like it enough to have a lot of it, I’ve got a case a half of this left, and by no means do I regret having those bottles. I plan of fully enjoying them.

That makes more sense. I don’t age many of the Dönnhoff Kabinetts long term, but I do put aside a bottle or two for the sake of science.