Very tempted to try one of my Gisela’s! But i only have three bottles so probably better to be patient 
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Has anyone tried anything from the Nahe? I’m curious how different, if at all, the ‘21s are from there.
Will taste at Schafer Frohlich on Monday, Schonleber on Tuesday. I’ll letcha know.
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Just wait the Kabinett Trocken revolution is just beginning in the U.S.!
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Looking forward to your trip report. I am super-interested in the “…whole world of very proper and very collectible wine that will be in the $20-$25+ range…”
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Great report from Stephen. I was just there in May for 10 days. visited a bunch of friends and a few wineries. The vintage is terrific. I’ll try to take the time to pull some notes together. Visited Knyphausen (stayed at the hotel), Wittmann, Seehof, Dr Loosen, Zilliken, Fritz Haag, Alex Loersch (new to me, great wines).
I’m typically not much of a spirits giuy but WoW! I had a couple shots of Wald Himbeer Brand from Michael Hilgert. Incredible aromas and flavors, essence of raspberry. Pricey but very worth it. The distillery is outside the village of Lieser. If you’re in the middle mosel you have to taste this guys stuff.
Funny story. I’ve been drinking cases of Weihwasser for the last year plus. Just last night I went down, cracked a box and poured a glass and I thought, “Holy Shit I know I love this wine but this is even better than the last few bottles.” Lo and behold it was my first bottle of the 2021, I had been drinking the 2020.
Heading to Boston tomorrow for Skurnik Germany/Austria roadshow.
Cheers
Ken
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@Ken I’ll be curious what you think about the Skurnik wines. Other than my regulars (Donnhoff, W. Schaefer, Merkelbach) are there standouts or must buys?
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I will post notes. Not sure what will be shown. Stay tuned.
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I tasted fast but many 2021 from Mosel, Saar and Ruwer a week ago. Generally I do not like the vintage, because acidity and poor ripeness are there. Producers dealt very different with this problem and the results are very different as well. There is green fruit and green, scratchy acidity, there is malo, stem contact, lees contact and probaly deacidification as well. But, as always, for some miracle or talent or luck some producers impressed nevertheless with their 2021s. Falkenstein is one of them. Then Peter Lauer. Fritz Haag. I think Schloss Lieser as well, it’s just that I cannot approach them when young. St. Urbanshof for sure. Pleasent suprizes where Huesgen and Breit. More than solid was Max Ferd Richter and Walter.
Yes, it is a great vintage for Kabinett.
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Second this as well. I feel like I’ll just stick to Willi Schaefer and Merkelbach Kabis from the Skurnik offer for now. Kind of tempted to grab a bottle of 1995 Merkelbach Urz Wurz Kabi for fun.
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Sounds like you were at Mythos Mosel Charlie.
I found a lot of the trocken and feinherb to be quite difficult. Not so integrated, and quite testing. But for now, I’m trusting wiser heads and buying as usual. Hopefully the promise of them becoming beautifully pure in 10 years pays off.
For me, the best wines at Mythos were the spatlesen and some kabinetts from more traditional producers. They were certainly the most integrated and approachable. Breit’s Kabi was a cracker. Same at the Pfingst Wanderung, and at various tastings in between.
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The highlights for me at the Skurnik tasting. I focused primarily on the 2021s. The dry wine have either just been bottled or were barrel samples so they need a bit of time to resolve. I would buy any or all of these.
Doenhoff
Hermannshoele GG 2021 was fantastic, intense, great fruit, minerality. Pricey but awesome.
Hoellenpfad im Muehlenberg GG 2021. Not familiar with this vineyard. Nose needs to develop but underneath a big wine, beautiful balance, great fruit.
Felsenberg GG 2021 Not quite at the same level as the previous two, perhaps a bit more elegant but not as intense. will surely develop into a very good bottle.
Oberhaeuser Bruecke 2021 Spaetlese. 2021 may be a Kabinett and Feinherb vintage but this wine was outstanding. I preferred it to the Hermannshoehle 2021 Spaetlese
Dr Buerklin-Wolf
Wachenheim “R” Riesling Trocken 2018 Wow wine. The R is for Reserve. Aged in fuder for three years on the lees.very aromatic, yellow fruits, plumas and apricots, fresh clean long finish. Similar treatment to Erni Loosen is doing with his GG Reserves which I tasted in May. Excellent wine.
Wachenheimer Rechbachel (Monopol) Riesling Trocken PC 2021 Very nice peachy nose sweet peach fruit on the palate. Long clean dry finish. Excellent.
Schloss Lieser
It was nice to see Thomas Haag at the tasting.
Niederberg helden Feinherb 2021 Nice aromatics, yellow fruit, peach skins, very good balance of fruit acid and minerality. Crisp finish. This hits all my happy points. very good wine. I even included “Yum” in my tasting notes.
Brauneberger Juffer Riesling Kabinett 2021. Outstanding, peach fruit, clean long finish, very well balanced. Based on the wholesale price this should retail between $30.00 and $35.00. I think it’s a great bargain for the quality.
Niederberg Helden Riesling Auslese 2021 If 2021 wasn’t an auslese vintage Thomas Haag nailed this one. Juicy sweet peach/apricot fruit, assertive balancing acidity, all the elements balanced beautifully. Should be a long distance runner. Very Good.
The Selbach and Merkelbach offerings were mostly 2020. I had limited time so didn’t focus on them. The exception was a 2021 Selbach-Oster Wehlener Sonnenuhr Spaetlese that was Very intense and delicious. excellent wine.
A side note I believe I spotted Terry Theise tasting and chatting with the winery folks on the other side of the room.
Cheers
ken
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I just went through my notes again and i missed three wines that i liked very much.
A.J. Adam Drohn Im Pfarrgarten Riesling Feinherb 2021 A real bargain at around $25.00 retail.
A.J. Adaom Drohn Hofberg Riesling Kabinett Very nice yellow fruit. crisp acidity , long finish. Very good.
Eugen Mueller Vom Basalt (Pechstein) Riesling Kabinett 2021 Quite juicy, long finish, good acid cut. Delicious
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How did you like the wines? I tasted there last Friday so curious what others think. I really liked the saltyness and freshness of the wines.
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I tasted ~300 fresh rieslings in Mythos Mosel weekend (+ a couple of days of random tastings) and I strongly co-sign that the vintage is at best for slim & playful kabinetts and maybe even more for spätleses. Sugar levels and alcohol-%s are very low (7-8 abv-% with 40-60 g sugars) which has been quite rare in recent years making also spätleses highly drinkable! however while sweeter (or even not so sweet) wines are clocking constantly over 10 … up to 13g(!) of acidity some tolerance is needed but I would say the wines handled high acidity quite well and while lineups had some green stuff as mentioned earlier I found big part surprisingly elegant esp. given the nature of the vintage. Even in dry area. In general the ripeness across the board is about the same only very early pickers have had in last vintages so if you have liked wines from say Max Kilburg, A.J. Adam, Julian Haart & Ludes (killer '21s btw.) you can pretty much buy without tasting and be very satisfied about the profile. Ain’t no downgraded auslese-level kabinetts in 2021 
. I did prioritize to taste collections of smaller estates so I don’t know if it’s worth to do any lists because most of them are not available outside of Europe but I would say the vintage has some very fine wines to offer (still) in very modest prices and I’m sure heavy hitters like Lieser, Haag & co perform really well in kabi/späts too! There are also new kabinetts coming from parcels that have usually used to high end dry / sweeter wines what’s kinda cool too. What was also nice to see, probably due to low yields, was that even the “simple” estate wines were really good in most parts and drank wayyy over their price tags so please be sure to check them also.
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I’d strongly concur to the assessment that 2021 is a vintage for Spätleses (which even by contemporary standards sometimes veer into light Auslese territory, really, but can be stellar) rather than for Kabinetts. Good examples notwithstanding, ripeness at the Kabinett level was sometimes too marginal and acidity levels just too high for proper balance. It’s not just the numeric values (which are impressive), it’s the entire feel of the wines that has shifted. Very interesting from an academic perspective, but not really joie de vivre, I’m afraid.
Cheers,
HPE
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I was about to write something like that too. The vintage will not be a crowd-pleaser like recent vintages since 2017 has more or less been. I like my kabinetts low in oechsle, stinky, slim & fresh so I have no problems with low sugars, high acidity and all herbal fruit shy profile but I’m sure it’s not for everybody like, say, very accessible 2020 (which i also really like). I was prepared even more brutal vintage but somehow the actual acidity is not so over the top than numeric values would tell. For example I’m huge fan of Klosterhof’s Brauneberg Klosterkarten kabinett which has extreme 13.5g of acidity. Now that’s kind of number that in paper makes kabinett undrinkable but it’s somehow working very well despite lowish sugars. I had multiple conversation like that in Mythos Mosel. While numeric values as astronomical they somehow are not that over the top on palate which also makes 2021 very interesting vintage.
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We (or at least I!) in Europe would be more than happy to hear your observations ![[thankyou.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/d/df165fe9c1593d19166ae7e1ffe5e272089cc07b.gif "thankyou"){kind=small}
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I did not had time to taste as much I would have liked (always like that in Mythos Mosel) but I really liked these (in no specific order). Keep in mind that I have drank many of those before so I kinda knew what to expect.
Ludes
Carlo Schmit
Petershof
K.J. Thul
Jakoby Mathy
Ulrich Langguth
Frank Brohl
Lenhardt ('21s surprisingly good but 2020 dry wines are superb!)
von Beulwitz
Weber Brüder
Wwe. Dr. H. Thanisch, Erben Thanisch (vdp)
Claes Schmitt Erben
Lubentiushof (release very late so no '21 wines but even the 18s were great)
Klosterhof (one of the best kabi collection of the year)
Weingut des Herzens
Gehlen-Cornelius
Adams (from Mehring - completely unknown for me but wines were really good!)
Eifel-Pfeiffer
Christoph Clüsserrath
Bernhard Eifel
Christoph Eifel (Probably the strongest overall collection I did taste from estate up in whole weekend. Recommend!).
Ansgar Clüsserrath (Only vom Schiefer & Apotheke kabi from '21 both really good!)
Lenz Jakoby
Würtzberg
Scholtes
Falkenstein
Edit. Falkenstein was missing
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This is not what I have heard from many experienced tasters and 10 or so top winemakers.
Dry wines, Feinherb and Kabinett is what it is about. I will be there soon and can give you my own impressions.
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