August 16, 2023 - Dinner at Chengdu Impression (Chicago, IL): Corked.
August 16, 2023 - Corked
April 13, 2023 - Berserker Thursday - Riesling in SF (Mezze and More): Fascinating wine. Rich white fruit and honey nose, but palate was surprisingly quite dry. I would say Trocken, or perhaps barely off Trocken. Less sweet than the Feinherbs on the table. Racy, penetrating and delicious, with herbal and savory notes to complement the fruity nose. Long finish. Excellent. Not what I was expecting but nothing wrong with that!
October 16, 2022 - Wonderful acidity and freshness after a night of Burg tasting. The finish could be a tad longer. Hopefully some age will bring this around. More of a food wine than dessert wine. It went quite well the following day with some butternut squash soup.
March 3, 2022 - Corked. Well, shit.
June 7, 2020 - My last bottle. Very consistent with my last note. Stunningly delicate, impeccably balanced Auslese. Off-dry rather than sweet. Pear, lime, peach and apple dance on the palate. Impossibly fresh and primary, showing no age except for a hint of petrol on the nose. Light-bodied, with a long length. I'm going to miss this.
April 21, 2020 - Pale gold core with strong green reflections. White flowers, green apple, lemon, honey, and a hint of petrol on the nose. More off-dry than sweet, with bracing acidity. Everything promised by the nose (and more!) is delivered on the palate: green apple, peach, a touch of raspberry on the finish. This is so elegant, light, and impeccably balanced. Still very young—the fruit is singing, and the petrol detected on the nose is barely noticeable on the palate. The length is long, and the finish is crisp and mineral, leaving you thirsty for the next sip. Magnificent.
January 13, 2019 - 2001 Fritz Haag usually wows and this was no exception. The nose on this starts quite ripe with red apple, baked apple and honey, but then 01 kicks in and we get some meyer lemon, some sort of citric tropical and some minerals. This continues through the wine - the combo of nice richness with a solid acidic background - the two play off one another to create a wine of great depth and verve. Eminently drinkable, but also a wine with gravitas.
July 29, 2018 - AP 06 02. Absolutely wonderful, but not what I was expecting. Exceptionally well-integrated at this point, but an almost spatlese freshness suggests an Auslese from 2004, not 2001. Somewhat tart and without blatant sweetness, this was extremely food friendly and speaks to Riesling's ability to age. This is in a perfect place right now and there's no reason to wait any longer, but it has plenty of life ahead of it as well.
September 9, 2017 - Sure ... why the hell not. This has peach, some vanilla creme, red apple, lemon-lime, brown spices, honeycomb, some herbs, white flowers and minerals. Maybe a touch of something tropical with some acidity: mango or pineapple. It manages to be quite sharp on the nose while sweet and round as well. This is quite supple on entry, not to sweet, not to acidic - pretty gentle actually, with some golden aspects: peach, red and gold apple, some honey and honeycomb. The lime and minerality show on the sides of the tongue, and fill in more to meld with the rest in the midpalate, but this stays pretty gentle, balanced and friendly. You can feel the acid balancing it, so it never feels heavy at all, in fact it is quite light, but it doesn't have a huge electric drive we see in the 90's or the 96's. More savory herbal and mineral flavors come to the fore at the endpalate, along with the sour lemon-lime, which moves towards lime peel. These carry into the finish, yet there is still a golden and slightly honeyed aspect which permeates the entire palate. This is a beautiful, mature and balanced Riesling, but it lacks just a little something for me to consider it stunning. Nose - 5-5.5/6, Palate - 5-5.5/6, Finish - 5/6, Je ne Sais Quoi - 1.5/2 = 17-17.5/20 = 16.5-17.5/20.