February 6, 2024 - Wow, so much more impressive than one would (or should) expect from a modest wine that was about $20 on release. Orchard, citrus, and stone fruit, crushed brick, green herbs. An initial sweetness yields to the high acidity. Still quite youthful. More joyfully opulent and less linear than I usually expect from Donnhoff. Yum.
December 9, 2023 - Lemon, lime green apple, peach pit, a touch of creaminess developing as the bottle is open. Great acidity, gives it a very bright, young feel. Finish length is impressive. Wish I'd held this another 5 years to see it mellow and develop even a bit further.
November 23, 2023 - Consistent with most recent note; an absolute joy in a lean style with focused acidity.
November 20, 2023 - What an amazing beautiful wine. Tangerines, clementines, minerals, herbs, a bit of petrol, just a touch of sweetness, and acidity that goes on and on and on. Perfectly balanced, light, sophisticated. An absolute joy.
October 12, 2023 - This is bright, vibrant, and primary. 11 years young. The nose is piercing, wafting Sprite sans the ticklish bubbles, mandarin, chalk, and dried herbs. Medium bodied with bright, long tensile acid that functions as a robust spine for what's a still-tight structure. The sugar is there, but this is far from sweet. Flavors include sweet lime and lemon, grapefruit, peach, slate, grass. It's a brilliant wine that I wish I'd held onto for another five to ten years, although doing so would risk losing the sweetness that's there.
August 1, 2023 - really really good
January 28, 2023 - I was absolutely mesmerized by this beauty! Of all the wonderful wines I have drunk lately, this inexpensive Kabinett is by far the most compelling, to be sure. All at once the fruit comes out in a melange of lime, tangerine, sweet grapefruit, apple, pear, nectarine. Then the lode car of mineral perceptions come out, like slate, clay, dried sand, rock dust. Then there is a pretty floral component that comes through and a field of wild grasses and flowers that presents itself. It is light, nimble, easy, but deep as heck, and just wonderful to sip or gulp.
August 5, 2022 - Lemon curd, a little petrol, nectarine on the nose. Lemon pith, pineapple, and stone on the palate. Somehow alternâtes between fairly rich and quite light. Still quite youthful and fruit forward. This was finished within 30 minutes of opening so had zero chance to open, but wasn’t huge joy at that stage.
July 28, 2022 - Dinner with Nonna (Donnhoff, Scavino, Borgogno, Castell’in Villa): From screw cap. Wow is this good! It is still bright and shiny as ever, but nicely showing it’s decade in the bottle! Here the fruit it still vivid with citrus, tangerine and sweet lime, with limestone, and hard rock mineral, green dried leaf spices, a slight hint of that petrol thing that’s not really like petrol, but is… At 10 it is still a thrilling, gorgeous, lovely, pradikat that I most highly recommend! Nonna said she likes Riesling so we obliged her with this!
May 3, 2022 - I find these Rieslings very sweet esp, 2013, but the 2012 has a wonderful acid streak that makes it feel like you are drinking a lemon ice sorbet, beautiful wine.