Community Tasting Notes (7) Median Score: 94 points

  • Tet dinner. Nice mature Auslese but not as special as I'd hoped.

    Do you find this review helpful? Yes - No / Comment

  • 9,5% alcohol.

    Deep golden yellow color. Somewhat underwhelming but also very dense and nuanced nose with moderately developed aromas of wizened apricots, honeyed richness, some wet stones and a hint of perfumed wild flowers. The wine is medium-bodied, lively and remarkably fresh on the palate with somewhat oily and slightly viscous mouthfeel, pronounced steely minerality and medium-sweet flavors of tart, lemony citrus fruits, apple juice concentrate, some lemon marmalade, a little bit of apple peel bitterness and a hint of dried peach. With its racy acidity the wine feels remarkably focused and structured. The finish is fresh and lively with quite lengthy and relatively dry flavors of tart lemony citrus fruits, sweet apple juice concentrate, some spicy wildhoney, a little bit of floral complexity and a hint of honeycomb. Even as the fruit flavors fade, the acidity and the mineral tones carry on for a long time.

    A wonderfully focused and structured Auslese that feels remarkably fresh and youthful for its age - it would be easy to guess this wine was 10 years younger if it was served blind! Very harmonious with the bracing acidity offsetting the high residual sugar sweetness wonderfully. Obviously still on its way up - there's definitely no need whatsoever to pop any of the remaining bottles open in the near future.

    Do you find this review helpful? Yes - No / Comment

  • Who said Donnhoff doesn't age?? Beauty. Just starting to develop those secondary notes of petrol and rubber. The fruit is vibrant and dare I say, fresh? Will age for another 10-15 no doubt.

    Do you find this review helpful? Yes - No / Comment

  • Profound. Brown glass bottle. Cork fully saturated with very noticeable seepage, and the strong smell of brown sugar on the outside of the cork. Beautiful golden yellow, and much more yellow than gold. This is still young, unbelievably. Slow-oxed for three hours, then double decanted for one, and it still took two hours to open up. Tight at first, strongly acidic, and appearing thin and understated. Finally emerged to glorious baked apples, cotton candy, marzipan, wet wool, lemon infused Lipton tea, deep ripe honeyed tropical fruits, kumquat, carambola, lime, flint, smoke, dank rotting pineapples in the rainforest, molasses, on and on - all perfectly interwoven. Supernally long, uncannily complex, still taut, and spectacular to the last fume. A genuine masterpiece, this is a testament to anyone that says Helmut's wines don't age. Shockingly good, and a revelation. The highest rating I've ever given a white wine, this is solidly 99pts, and I'm probably being stingy.

    1 person found this helpful, do you? Yes - No / Comment

  • Indistinguishable in color from iced tea. Cloudy too. Oxidized sherry-liked flavors. Elected not to drink this one.

    Do you find this review helpful? Yes - No / Comment

View all 7 Community Tasting Notes

What Do You Think? Add a Tasting Note

Professional reviews have copyrights and you can view them here for your personal use only as private content. To view pro reviews you must either subscribe to a pre-integrated publication or manually enter reviews below. Learn more.

Add a Pro Review Add Your Own Reviews:
 

Advertisement

×