TNs: A couple fo '97 Rieslings

Decided to do a #rieslingstudy with a couple of '97 rieslings I stumbled across on a restaurant list. Fun wines.

  • 1997 Von Schubert Maximin Grünhäuser Abtsberg Riesling Auslese - Germany, Mosel Saar Ruwer (7/27/2021)
    Took about 20-30 minutes to open up, but this is in a lovely place now. Bruised stone fruit, peaches, pear, star fruit, ginger, dill fronds. Good weight, density and length. Stately elder. Reminds me of the last couple of lines in Tennyson’s Ulysses. AP 09 98

ABV: 7.5%
Closure: natural cork, completely intact
Decant: 1h
Stem: Schott Zwiesel Tritan Burgundy


  • 1997 Koehler-Ruprecht Kallstadter Saumagen Riesling Spätlese - Germany, Pfalz (7/27/2021)
    Fresher, brighter and fruitier than the '97 Grünhäuser Abtsberg Auslese tasted along side it. Some ginger and petrol at the beginning and slightly spicier and mineral driven. With time it revealed itself to be a harlequin of a wine. Peach pit, lemon sherbert, candied citrus, marzipan, almonds, sassafras. Light, nimble, but with great depth and colour. AP 07 98

ABV: 10.0%
Closure: natural cork, completely intact
Decant: 45min
Stem: Schott Zwiesel Tritan Burgundy

Grunhaus 97s are great. I adore the #57 and #89 as well as the ‘straight’ Auslese.

Now I hear Judi Dench uttering those lines in Skyfall.

Nice notes. Thanks for sharing. I have little experience with '97s but these sound great.

My bottle of the Grunhaus (from December 2020) seemed fresher. Still - 1997 Grunhaus is always a joy.

  • 1997 Von Schubert Maximin Grünhäuser Abtsberg Riesling Auslese - Germany, Mosel Saar Ruwer (12/12/2020)
    Incredibly youthful and impeccably precise, this is just about perfect wine. From the time before pradikat inflation, this wine is drinkable with dinner, rather than being better suited as an aperitif or for afterwards. Still showing fresh fruit, it has also developed a creamy edge that brings a more mouth filling sensation to a wine that is light on its feet. In a class of its own, Grunhaus is just Grunhaus, one of the three most distinctive estates in the larger Mosel region, alongside Prüm and Müller.

It sounds like it, but it’s tough to say for sure since I was tasting the two wines side by side.

In that type of situation one starts focusing more on comparing the wines. One wine’s characteristics can be perceived differently simply by contrast to the other. A kabinett may taste fruity on its own, but if tasted after a TBA, it’d taste noticeably different.

Well yeah, but I try not to have kabinetts after TBAs. :wink:

That was more a hyperbolic example than anything else to help illustrate how one may perceive a wine different by just the virtue of tasting something else alongside it.

Definitely not ordering recommendations. Though if you’re not a fan of RS that’s certainly one way to make a wine with a few grams of RS feel drier neener