Martin, thanks for posting this. I am an occasional Riesling drinker but know what I like and have complained (here even) the past few years exactly about this phenomenon. Glad I’m not alone and wish we could turn this into a movement of some sort .
Another note of thanks, and what made me come back and post on this a few days later…I am sitting here with 2013 Karthäuserhof Eitelsbacher Karthäuserhofberg Kabinett saying to myself hey this is exactly what I want in a Riesling. I noticed the cellartracker notes pointing back to your Kabinett Cup tasting last year; I hadn’t made the connection but will pay more attention going forward. Good stuff.
I was looking for a general thread on German Riesling akin to the Bordeaux, Burgundy, and Loire threads but stumbled on this one instead. Really good content and interesting exchange in the comment section: thanks for sharing, Martin, didn’t know you organise a KabinettCup in Berlin. To think I used to live in Berlin…
Anyway, maybe I can ask the Riesling aficionados here for some advice in selecting a nice Kabinett? There’s so much to choose from and I am a bit lost. I was looking at this online retailer and trying to pick something in the AU$50 range. There’s a wealth of producers, vintages, and vineyards available… let’s say I’m trying to find something with the “weightless elegance” the article mentions, and drinking well now, what would you suggest?
Schildknecht: “And at least 75% of the youthful Riesling Kabinetts I taste today harbor 25-50% more residual sugar than did Kabinetts from those same estates in the 1980s and early ’90s.”
I defer to David and Howard, BUT I love young Zilliken Rausch Kabi. 8 year old Willi Schaefer turned me on aging Kabinett and I am in the process of so doing. Looking forward to my first aged Zilliken!
Jan, thanks for resurrecting Martin’s original post and link for some of us to read that article for the first time. What a beautiful piece by Paula Sidore. The flow of her writing, her choice of words and phrases and imagery, reinforced the theme of her message. Light, almost ethereal, beautiful. Thanks for sharing this, Martin.
P.S. I am a relative newbie to Riesling Kabinett, but its music suits me.
Zilliken’s wines age very well. I had a 2003 Rausch Spatlese a couple of weeks ago that was fabulous, and I generally am not a big fan of 2003s.
By the way, you should never defer to me. I cannot learn anything that way.
Do note that I was very lucky earlier in my German wine buying days to have met David Schildknecht when he was working at retail in DC. I bought most of my Riesling (hell, I bought most of my wine) from David for close to a decade before he left DC. So, I recommend paying close attention to what he says. I recommend listening to this interview: SoundCloud - Hear the world’s sounds
I have more wines from JJ Prum than I do from Zilliken, but I think Zilliken might be my favorite German wine producer. I love Prum but largely I have more wines from Prum because (1) I have been buying them for longer (before I started drinking Zilliken) and (2) I tend to drink Prum wines at an older age than I do Zilliken wines.