This needed a lot of air and popping and pouring this wasn't the wisest move - a glass much later in the night showed much better and provided more interest, even though the wine was quite a bit warmer by that point. It's an impressive wine with plenty of ripe white fruited flavours, sweeter floral notes, and a firm stony mineral base underneath, showing more richness and sweetness than I typically expect from GGs. Even then, I'm still left wondering how much more I might have enjoyed a Kabinett, Spätlese, or Auslese instead - this is well made, but doesn't show any of the sheer joie de vivre or provide the visceral enjoyment I got from the Wittmann Morstein Kabinett recently (at a fraction of the price of this wine.)

Kabinett my ass, there is some serious prädikat creep happening here - this has the weight and intensity of a rich Spätlese, bordering Auslese. But labeling aside, this is delicious. The fruit flavours span a spectrum ranging from riper white cherry and peachy flavours to the more classic Mosel apple and citrus notes, augmented by an array of floral, lightly honeyed, and gentle mineral notes. Generous sweetness here but it's balanced by bright acids, and the whole package is incredibly easy to drink.

Leftovers from the bottle that Seth posted his 4/19 note on. It's still holding up quite nicely, though doesn't show quite the same array of aromatic depth Seth described. The red fruited flavours here are quite gentle and play a supporting role to more savoury dried floral, herbal, and faintly leathery elements. Feels fully mature and perhaps slightly on the downslope, with the structure fully integrated here, and a graceful, silky texture on a mediumweight frame.

Just a stunning bottle of Burgundy - a hauntingly complex and beautiful fragrance, a palate that's so graceful and polished with fine grained tannin beneath, and somehow it keeps getting better and better with air. There's no sense trying to describe the various flavour components, because this is so much more than the sum of all the various flavours - I'll just say it seems to show equal parts fruit, earth, and more savoury developed tertiary notes, with everything coming together into a seamless whole.

Seth's bottle - he said he decanted this around 9 AM, and about 9 hours later it was only just starting to open out. First impressions were of a wine that was still somewhat tight, showing a beautiful core of red and dark fruited flavours accented by savoury herbal, floral, and tarry notes, but with a firm tannic spine dominating on the back end. Still more air helped ease out the tannin a bit more (though it never entirely relents), and brought out more aromatic depth as the various non-fruited elements became more prominent around the core of bright fruit. Lovely wine - even if it needs a lot more time to be 'ready', I'm glad for the opportunity to drink it now.

Seemed heat-damaged, or at the very least unreasonably advanced and not representative of what this wine should be. Tastes more like stale apple juice than anything I would expect in a mature Riesling. Shame, because old Von Schuberts can be so thrilling. (WineBid sticker on the back.)

Spectacular Riesling. I'd say this is near the platonic ideal of aged Spätlese for me, but Seth kept insisting that he had a bottle recently from the same lot that was somehow even better (!!!). But this was just thrilling; the fruit still remarkably fresh and vibrant with that electric '90 acidity beneath giving it plenty of lift, layers of more savoury smoky, honeyed, and creamy flavours, and those more herbal, faintly minty, and pine cone-like notes I always find in older Von Schubert. Incredible balance and depth, very much a wow wine.

Quite the contrast to the Grünhäus that preceded it - whereas that was all crackling electricity and vibrancy, this is a gentler, quieter wine. Beautiful aromatics - riper peach and white cherry mixed with tarter lime and pear fruit, and gentle floral and honeyed accents. The palate is very similar, dominated by the youthful fruit with a mineral undercurrent that becomes more apparent on the back end. Lovely wine, the kind of Auslese that's perfect at the table with food, rather than a botrytis-heavy dessert wine.

A dinner with Seth, Jay, and I - of course, Seth brought an old Catoir, and the only question was whether he'd bring a Riesling, Scheurebe, or Rieslaner. Ludicrous amounts of sweetness and richness; absurdly high acidity; somehow it all comes into balance and it works. I have no idea how, other than that Hans-Gunter Schwarz is a wizard. It's packed with ripe tropical fruit, those fiery spicy notes of Rieslaner (and the slight rough phenolic texture I usually associate with it), layers of botrytised honey and caramelly sweetness, and the whole package is just spectacular - intensely rich and sweet, yet feeling absolutely electric and shockingly light on its feet. A Cronenberg of a Rieslaner, and a goddamn delicious one.

Apparently I had this wine ~12 years ago - my descriptors for it are very similar to my CT note from then - motor oil, yep. Intensely powerful, yep. Raisiny, chocolatey, figgy, etc - yup, all of the above. But I found myself enjoying this one a lot more, as this was absolutely delicious and I even reached for a second glass (something I rarely do with PX, given the sheer intensity).