My first 2021 was the AJ Adam Piesporter Godtröpfchen Kab, and although the wine is very juicy, attractively aromatic (strong fruit and herbal/mineral at the same time) and very long/intense (which may mostly be due to the very high acidity of 10.9 g/L) - I do not really like it, and the bottle doesn’t go down easily.
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I am struggling with what I am hearing from producers and tasters who know my palate and say that this is a Kabinett and Feinberb vintage versus the praise for Spatlese from MFW who I have the utmost respect. I do know a couple of producers said their Spats are great they just have miniscule quantities.
I am acid freak so I intuitively I think I am going to be ultimately right for my tastes. I will see soon enough.
I am VERY happy I went long on Egon Muller before the MFW Report. Although from what I am hearing from friends in the trade the wines are not selling after the almost 100% increase in price in the U.S.
I’ve been buying Willi Schafer GD Spat #5 every vintage since I started seriously collecting German wine in 2015. If this is anything like the 2019 I’ll be thrilled.
I loved the WS Auslese*** Fass 42 from 2019. They seem to praise that wine in 2021 again and I was considering grabbing a couple to put away (I’m 35, I can wait).
For comparison what do you both feel about 2013?
Aaaah yes, that 2019 Fass 42 is magic, totally up my alley, too. Good luck getting some 2021, way more airy than the 2019 (which generally I found pretty sturdy).
Not a fan of their Goldtröpfen, I prefer Häs’chen and Hofberg. But 2021 I’d go… uh well, I’m repeating myself, aren’t I.
On the plane back to the states now.
Man oh man is it inspiring to see so many friends after a few years of Covid nuttiness.
And to once again see the physical beauty of these growing regions. It never ceases to amaze and inspire me.
Based on my not-so-massive-but-qualitatively-great sample size at the estates I listed earlier in the thread, each case one at a time, there are brilliant examples of every style.
Indeed, in the Mosel, there are brilliant Kabi, Spat, Aus and above, in the “throwback” style. Feinherbs too. Really special stuff.
For the successful examples, which are many, the Kabis are a pure feathery delight, the Spats silky and energetic, and some throwback drinking ausleses that are actually ausleses, not BAs in auslese clothing. I personally love higher pradikat wines without botrytis, so me likey likey.
Some get a bit extreme, and so I can see why some folks urge some caution with decoupled acidity that likely won’t really ever integrate.
There are Feinherb, Kabi and Spätlese wines with decoupled acidity…too much yield in a year like 2021 will do that.
For many “best i’ve ever tasted” examples, the yields were ridiculously low. Like Grand cru red Burgundy low, 20-25hl kind of stuff, which for Riesling is not something i’ve ever encountered. In some such examples, they are like an essence of their site, absolutely mindblowingly intense. The mentions of the importance of dry extracts cannot be overstated. This is a signature key for the vintage, to me. Off the charts dry extracts at times, and it just makes the wines that much more buffered, balanced, and profound.
That’s why the specific details are so important.
The generalizations are useful to create a certain context, and then from there you’ve got to toss out those generalizations and get specific.
There is also personal taste, and that, um, is kind of important. ;0
I too love and appreciate the work of the MFW guys, but I don’t look to them so much for their opinions of dry wines.
It seems that their heart sings moreso for the sweeties, and that’s just fine.
I just take their reviews with that grain of salt in mind.
Everyone’s opinion in this thread I can see as viable, reflective of personal preference and specific experiences.
As to what I tasted outside of the Mosel (you know, they grow wine there too… ;0 )
Tim Fröhlich’s collection is just nuts, mindblower stuff to me. The GGs are like a concentrated essence of liquid geology, at 12-12.5% alcohol; the Felsenberg, is like drinking an essence of minerality, not from acid, but dry extract. Simply incredible. All of the GGs were mindblower good, maybe the Kupfergrube the only one that didn’t have my eyes bulging out of my head in disbelief. His sweeties are incredible…He had pretty much normal yields to boot. Broken record like, “best ever best ever best ever”, and its not bullshit! ;0 He is amazing.
At Emrich Schönleber, they had 40-50% losses. The Frühlingsplatchen cask sample was bonkers good, just ridiculously good. The Halenberg GG was being bottled the day that I tasted, and was just not in a good place. The Niederberg wines impressed. After sulfur adjustment and mid-bottling, I reserve judgement on the Halenberg for the moment.
I’ve been doing this long enough to know that wines have their wiles, and to take impressions with a grain of salt sometimes.
The Wagner Stempel wines are incredibly good. Like nuts good. Those guys are on a special level of consistency, I believe.
The Mosbacher wines are delightfully dancy, even a beautiful botrytis free Ungeheuer Spätlese that is nuts good, their first in the category since 2015. Pfalz ripeness without overripeness is right up my alley, and the Pfalz warmth (vs the Mosel cooler) and solid yields on the hillside (typical yields on the hill, big losses in the flats) all added up to fantastic finesse.
I heard somewhere that Rebholz called the vintage his most emotionally intense of his career, I think for both the amount of work needed, and how beautiful the wines ended up…
Ditto for the Rings, their Rieslings are outstanding limestone driven delights, crystalline, impeccably balanced, 12.5% alc. (2020 Pinot Noirs are outstanding…)
I didn’t try any of Clemens Busch’s '21 dry wines, but the Kabi and GK Spat '21 are both outstanding.
And then the dark horse of the vintage who I believe will have very very few peers at the quality level/style, pretty much outrageously unbelievably good GG wines: Steinmetz. The concentration and finesse of his '21s is just insane, from stooopid low yields, 12.5% alcohol.
Oh, and sidebar: if the knock on contemporary Alsatian wines are too much opulence, not enough dry precision, from what I tasted, the '21s are in that same vein of concentrated essences of their ilk, absolutely gorgeous gorgeous. Outrageously low yields helped that happen, like sometimes 10hl/ha. They had frost early, as well as mildew pressure…
So long story short, it is all true, the special throwback beauty of 2021, the pitfalls.
I’m going to go very very big on 2021.
That’s my taste.
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Thank you very much, Robert! This is extremely helpful. I plan to go big as well and I am already off to a great head start!
No visit to JJ Prum? 
I visited Prum.
This does not surprise and could be said for a number of recent vintages. In 2014, Stefan quietly made the wines of the vintage in the Mosel.
Lyle has tasted a bunch and has said the same.
He is not on my current itinerary but I am going to try to see if he can squeeze me in!
Now I’m a bit confused; there seems to be a dichotomy to the 2021 German wines acidity and whether it will integrate or not.
I’m not an acid head in any way, but I do seek out wines with a solid acid backbone and structure and will patiently wait for the acid to integrate and the wine to come into balance. Furthermore, I drink predominantly bone-dry trocken wines to pair with our meals. What I am hoping for in the 2021’s is that the resounding acid will, in time, integrate to make for a great finished product. However, the process would evolve over many years and last for many more years, not over the course of a year or two and then have the wines fall apart.
The best thing would be to sample the wines myself, but I don’t have that privilege. Instead I’m trying to discern others first hand experiences.
I don’t think high acid wines every fully integrate. What I would suggest is try a couple of Feinherbs or wines that are the high end of the RS scale for dry. You might like them more than you think in a high acid year because the RS will be toned done by the Acid and vice versa.
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True, the RS/acid balance is key, however, the drier the better.
I’m looking forward to your report!
For me, I always explain the balance relationship moreso as a triangle than a binary/two part equation.
A lot people just talk about fruit/RS and acidity.
I prefer the triumvirate of:
Acidity
Fruit/RS
Dry extract
The importance of the latter isn’t appreciated as much as it should be in consumer consciousness, imho.
It could be just a fairy tale in my head, but I don’t think so…
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I would also agree with that and know what you mean. This comes down to more tasting experience as there are no numerical measures of dry extract. I also find it to be something that is more apparent in wines from older vines.
It is cool though when you do have two wines with different acid / RS ratios and you can demonstrate that the higher RS one actually tastes drier because of the acid.
@Robert and Robert … I see the term ‘dry extract’ a lot and have a vague sense of what it means. But I’m curious what it means to you guys - what is your taste experience of dry extract? And also, more specifically, what does it mean for you in Riesling (because this will probably be pretty different in, say, Barolo)? I’m really curious in the context of the '21 German Riesling vintage. Perhaps in the context of '19 and '20 as well.
I was thinking of starting a separate thread on the more general question of dry extract, but found this one instead Let's talk about "dry extract" - WINE TALK - WineBerserkers.
This is not going to be a great answer but you know it when you taste it. To me its when the flavors are more concentrated without higher alcohol or sugar. A recent example was a 2020 Ulli Stein Palmberg Kabinett Trocken - this wine is bone dry, high acid, low alcohol but is has so much depth, length and complexity that I attribute to dry extract.
As I understand it, dry extract is in fact a measurable number, and is quite commonly part of the stats that German producers ask for when they send their wines for lab analysis.
Dry extract is what would be left if you evaporated/boiled off all of the liquid, and had solids that remain.
Acidity remnants would also be a part of dry extract, but there are lots of other compounds too.
In particularly low yielding vintages, wind evaporation driven concentrated vintages, as well as in older vine wines, there are higher levels of dry extract.
As Dentice alludes to, there is a greater depth of flavor in higher dry extract wines, you can taste it.
For red wines, such analysis is requested far less, as the presence of tannin and other skin driven solids proves to be a less useful indicator of flavor intensity than in the crystalline/transparent white wines.
Riesling is rightly celebrated for its particularly strong capacity to transparently express terroir, like crystal clear lake water that let’s you see through it, to sense its geological origins.
I am not a scientist, nor technical expert, so please pardon me if I am oversimplifying or misrepresenting reality.
I’m just doing my best to help people learn new detail about something that I have found to be really important and consistent indicator of other-than-fruit flavor intensity, particularly what we refer to as minerality.
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I am now going to be asking 20 German winemakers if they measure for dry extract! : )
I have never seen these numbers discussed the way you do for Acid and RS.
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