Brooklyn Blind Tasting Panel # 6 - 2009 "Basic" German Riesling

I'm a German wine neophyte, but over the past year I've started poking around a bit, drinking Riesling here and there. I like the wines very much in general, but I'm still a bit intimidated. There are several regions and many producers, sweet wines and off-dry wines and dry wines, wines that were harvested at spätlese must weight but fermented dry, and all sorts of other complications. Some of the labels indicate the relative sweetness (trocken, halbtrocken, feinherb, etc.), some do not.

How to really begin learning about the wines, approaching them in a sensible way? There are many answers to this question, but I decided that I would use basically the same approach that I use with Burgundy wine. Drink the basic wines by a variety of producers and see whose wines I like, and go from there.

In Burgundy it's this is relatively straight forward - the basic wines are regional wines, Bourgognes and the like. But what are the basic German Rieslings? Knebel makes a wine that is simply called Riesling Trocken. It is not classified using prädikat language (kabinett, spätlese, etc.), it is a blend from several vineyards, and is the most inexpensive wine in their portfolio. Sounds like a basic wine. But wait - Knebel also makes the Von den Terrasen Riesling Trocken, also a blend from a few vineyards, also without prädikat language, and only a few dollars more. Are they both basic wines?

Perhaps these things are a bit silly to focus on, but it became an issue when I decided to convene the Brooklyn Blind Tasting panel to sample a load of "basic" German Riesling from the 2009 vintage. Which wines should be included, which should not? I very much wanted to include the wonderful Immich-Batterieberg Mosel Riesling CAI, but I didn't because the wine is a kabinett. It didn't have to be labeled this way, but it was - see importer's explanation in the comments on this post. Anyway, I bought some wines for the tasting, and when I asked a few Riesling importers for donations, they were all a bit confused. "What exactly do you want," they would ask. "Do you want dry wines or sweet wines, and what about prädikat language? And what if a producer makes more than one of these 'basic' wines, as you call them?" Reasonable questions, indeed.

But I was determined to do this tasting for a couple of reasons. Firstly, I haven't done one of these in a long time and I really enjoy blind tasting. Also, I wanted to learn more about the producers. And lastly, I had this idea that "basic" German Riesling can compete with the best white wines of the world, say Muscadet, at the under $20 price point. So flawed definition and all, I convened the panel and we tasted 2009 "basic" German Riesling. For this tasting I was joined by some serious Riesling people: Rubén Sanz Ramiro, Head Sommelier at Veritas Restaurant, Stephen Bitterolf, Wine Director at Crush Wine & Spirits, and Eric Asimov, wine critic at The New York Times.

We tasted 9 wines in two flights, discussed the wines, and everyone selected two favorites. We then drank the wines with dinner. I must say, I was quite disappointed with how the wines showed, as a group. There were a few bright spots, but a few dark spots as well, and unless it was a root day or something, my theory about the great value of this category of wine was basically blown. The way I see it now is this: there are some producers whose "basic" wines are utterly fantastic, and might qualitatively equal a great Muscadet, for example. But if this tasting is representative of the wines as a group, then perhaps Eric Asimov was right when he said after hearing about my theory, and I'm paraphrasing here, "Hmm, I don't think I agree. After all, great Muscadet is made with the region's best grapes from its most interesting terroirs, and it sells for $16. Basic German Riesling, whatever that is, is made from the region's least interesting grapes and from its least interesting terroir, and it sells for $20. You have to buy up to get the best German wines."

Here are the wines we drank, along with some notes:

2009 Willi Schaefer Mosel Riesling Qualitätswein, $18, Terry Theise Selections/Imported by Michael Skurnik Wines. Rubén, Eric, and I selected this as our favorite of the tasting, and Stephen had it as his second favorite. I liked the subtlety and harmony of the nose, and the faint sponti whiff that darted in and out, and that the palate was so well balanced, although very much off-dry. It was clean and pure, and just delicious. Rubén thought it was a classic wine in the off-dry style of the Mosel. He said that it wasn't terribly concentrated, but he liked the vibrancy and focus, and he found that it improved over the course of the evening. Eric felt that it had good presence, texture, focus, balance, and acidity, and that it was simply very pleasing. He said that it was the most complete wine of the tasting. Stephen enjoyed the contrast between the fresh tart nose and the sweetness of the palate, and he thought it was a well-done wine. He did say, however, that there was something that bothered him about the midpalate, that it was a bit glossy, too giving, not enough cut.

2009 Reichsrat Von Buhl Deidesheimer Herrgottsacker Riesling trocken, $16, Rudi Wiest Selections/Imported by Cellars International. This wine was donated by the kind folks at David Bowler. This was Stephen's favorite wine. He said that it was the tartest, the most curt, and the shortest wine, but he liked the bitterness and acidity and suggested that this wine speaks more to the German palate. He said that it felt as though it has more ambition than some of the other wines, and that he wanted to check back in 5 years. I also liked this wine, particularly the mineral character, but I was put off by what I thought was the canned character of the fruit. Neither Eric or Rubén were terribly impressed.

2009 Weingut Keller Riesling trocken, $20, imported by Petit Pois Corp. Rubén and I both picked this as our second favorite wine. Rubén liked the midpalate concentration, although he noted that the alcohol stuck out a little and clipped the length a bit. I liked the nose a lot, with subtle pineapple fruit and minerals, and I found the palate to stand out among the wines for its mineral and acid drive. Clean and pure with some hints of baking spices, I wanted to eat with this wine. Stephen, by the way, identified it as a Rheinhessen wine, but didn't love it, wanting more tension in the wine.

2009 Fritz Haag Riesling, $18, Rudi Wiest Selections/Imported by Cellars International. This was Eric's second favorite wine. He felt that a touch of sulfur made it opaque, but he liked the texture and the presence, and he thought it had good length and lots of character. He said that it was identifiable as a Mosel Riesling in a classic way. Stephen found the wine to be confusing - he couldn't get much from it, finding it ornery and restrained. But he liked the green apple fruit and slightly salty taste, and the minerality. In the end, he thought that it never really came together. Rubén was on the fence, liking the ripeness, but he felt that the wine lacked concentration and length. I wanted to like the wine but I found the sulfur on the nose to be off-putting.

2009 Weiser-Kunstler Mosel Riesling feinherb, $19, Mosel Wine Merchant selections. This wine was kindly donated by the folks at Mosel Wine Merchant. Eric really liked this wine, finding good character and lovely apricot and peach fruit, some ginger, and minerals. He liked the succulent texture and called it one of the more complete wines of the tasting. I really liked this wine and second favorite was a toss up for me between this and the Keller. I thought the nose was subtle and harmonious, and I liked the hints of baking spice and earth. The off-dry palate was nicely balanced with good acidity and there was a lovely bitter pit finish. Stephen liked the fresh nose, the sweet palate and thought it was a well put together wine, but found it to be unidimensional. Rubén liked it initially, but going back to it he found it a bit mute and without complexity. There were leftovers of every wine except for Willi Schaefer's, and this one improved a lot on day 2, by the way.

2009 Schäfer-Fröhlich Nahe Riesling Medium-Dry, $19, Rudi Wiest Selections/Imported by Cellars International. This wine was donated by the kind folks at David Bowler. During the tasting this wine did not show very well, but it improved a lot on day 2. Stephen liked the clean mineral nose but found the wine to be closed down, or maybe reductive. He liked the pear and apple fruit but thought the wine was short and rough without much distinction. Eric didn't like the wine at first, finding it bland, but with air he liked the mineral character. In the end, though, he thought it was fairly simple. Rubén felt the same way. I liked the spices and the ripe orchard fruit but I thought it was reductive and not entirely balanced. Again, much better the next day.

2009 Müller-Catoir Riesling trocken, $18, Terry Theise Selections/Imported by Michael Skurnik Wines. This wine was donated by the kind folks at Michael Skurnik Wines. Although we were divided on this wine, no one thought it showed very well. Stephen found it bizarre but enjoyable, with ginger and mandarin, but he also thought it was lean and difficult. I thought it was basically a balanced wine and I liked the mandarin fruit and the acidity, but I thought it felt a bit candied. Eric and Rubén really did not like the wine. I heard things like "bland, dull, without character, too much malic acid, out of balance, short, over-cropped cheap Riesling."

2009 Peter Lauer Riesling Barrel X, $17, Mosel Wine Merchant. This wine was donated by the kind folks at Mosel Wine Merchant. This was an off bottle, and I say this because I've had a couple of bottles over the past few months, and this one was entirely different. Eric and Stephen literally said the same thing upon smelling - "Prum?" This wine was dominated by sulfur, overwhelmed by it. Sad too because Eric said that underneath the sulfur it seemed as though there was a very interesting wine with intriguing aromas and flavors. He wanted to check back in a few years. Stephen thought it was serious wine with freshness and a real core, very solid. He said that it wasn't a sulfur screw-up, that there was a lot of tension and the wine was built to age.

2009 Weingut Josef Leitz Riesling Eins Zwei Dry "3," $16, Terry Theise Selections/Imported by Michael Skurnik Wines. This wine was donated by the kind folks at Michael Skurnik Wines. I liked this wine more than the others, finding a rich ripe nose and palate that was almost balanced by the acidity, but I found something honeyed in there that was distracting. The others really disliked the wine. I heard things like "artificial, disjointed, thin, and dilute."