Tasting with Barbara Selbach

I've been a fan of the wines of Selbach-Oster for years, so I was thrilled to have the opportunity to meet and taste with the charming Barbara Selbach at Le Caveau, a small but outstanding retailer in Chamblee. The wines did not disappoint. As an added bonus, a friend brought two bottles of the 2007 Graacher Domprobst Riesling Spätlese, one sealed under Stelvin and the other under cork, giving us a chance to compare identical wines under different closures. Barbara mentioned that she had not done a head-to-head comparison in a long time, which added to the fun.

My notes are fairly cursory, but I hope they will be of some help to others. While I spent some time paying close attention to each wine early in the evening, I did not take contemporaneous notes analyticaly dissecting the wines. As the night went on I focused more on visiting with friends and getting to know Barbara and learning more about their philosophy and processes. As a result, my fond memories of the social part of the tasting are much more vivid than those of specific details of the wines themselves, and I'm pretty comfortable with that priority. My overriding impression, however, is that all of the wines were at least very good and those that were being offered (everything except the Auslese** and the 2007s) offer ridiculously good value. I'm not sure that there are better values in the wine world today than non-GG German wines from good producers.

• 2011 Selbach-Oster Riesling Brut 90 Points

  Germany, Mosel Saar Ruwer

  Seems a little sweeter than the Brut designation would indicate, not terribly complex, but delightfully fruity, gluggable and refreshing.

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• 2013 Selbach-Oster Pinot Blanc trocken 87 Points

  Germany, Mosel Saar Ruwer

  Floral, with white fruit and nice minerality, not too serious but a very nice quaffing wine.

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• 2012 Selbach-Oster Zeltinger Sonnenuhr Riesling Spätlese trocken 92 Points

  Germany, Mosel Saar Ruwer

  A little muted at first, but air reveals the underlying intensity and complexity. Give it some time and you should be well rewarded.

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• 2011 Selbach-Oster Riesling Kabinett 87 Points

  Germany, Mosel Saar Ruwer

  Lively, with good balance between fruit and acid and very easy to drink.

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• 2008 Selbach-Oster Zeltinger Sonnenuhr Riesling Spätlese 91 Points

  Germany, Mosel Saar Ruwer

  Very nice, a bit on the sweet side as the acidity can't quite keep up with the sugar, but well-knit and easy to drink.

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• 2010 Selbach-Oster Zeltinger Schlossberg Riesling Auslese ** 93 Points

  Germany, Mosel Saar Ruwer

  Fantastic, with lots of sugar but intense acidity that makes it drink off-dry. Complex, long, and delicious.

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• 2008 Selbach-Oster Pinot Brut 88 Points

  Germany, Mosel Saar Ruwer

  This blend of pinot blanc, pinot meunier, and pinot noir is crisp with loads of minerality and a subtle hint of strawberry on the nose. I like a little more meat on the bones of my dry sparking wines, but I suspect that fans of austere Champagnes would enjoy this a lot.

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• 2007 Selbach-Oster Graacher Domprobst Riesling Spätlese 89 Points

  Germany, Mosel Saar Ruwer

  We had two bottles, one under Stelvin and the other under cork, which made for a nice comparison. The Stelvin bottle showed a little reduction at first, and was a little lighter in color, but was also a little fresher and fuller through the mid-palate. With air, the differences, which weren't that significant to begin with, became even less prominent, but I'll give the edge to the Stelvin version.
  
  Both had nice acidity to balance the sweetness and were pleasures to drink, with lots of life remaining.

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My final conclusion is that, while I really liked Selbach-Oster's wines before this tasting, experiencing Barbara's charm and passion elevated them for me. I'm also grateful to see a top producer that is not slavishly following the current fashion that trocken is king, and is instead taking what I consider to be a more considered approach. I like many trocken wines, but I also like wines with RS, and have not been persuaded that trocken wines are necessarily the best representation of a particular site in a particular vintage. My tastings of GGs are fairly limited, and I've yet to taste one that I think reaches the heights of a Knoll Schütt, a Hirtzberger Singerriedel, or a Nikolaihof Steiner Hund, but I remain open to being persuaded that the trocken trend is a good thing.