<p>Buying directly is usually a little cheaper than going through a merchant, you get a better range of wines and may also develop a relationship with the winemakers/owners. Altogether: highly recommended!</p>
<p>Below are the wines that we bought directly from a wine-growing estate. Below the descriptions you will find the name of the estate listed as the first tag.</p>
This is one of several wines we bought during our 2008 Mosel tour. Clemens Busch was the last winery we visited on a busy day of tasting wine and despite a certain exhaustion we were very impressed with the dry Rieslings, a style many people might not expect from the Mosel. So how does the wine taste when taken out of the winery's tasting room?
Zehnthof Luckert has put out a masterly collection of wines in 2008. After the explosively fruity dry Muskateller, the earthy and rich Müller-Thurgau, this old vine-Silvaner brings some more thunder (and these are all from the affordable section...).
Nice deep straw colour, almost a golden tinge. Smells of ripe pears, peaches, ginger. More peachy and Riesling-like on the second day.
In the mouth, ripe apples and peaches, textbook earthy minerality, quite creamy and rich, but with good acidity, vibrant, that great ginger spiciness again, and - is that curry? Not over-typical for Silvaner, as it could easily pass for a unusually creamy and spicy Riesling, but that doesn't take anything away.
Straw-coloured. Fairly understated smell of candied citrus peel, camomile tea and a hint of petrol.
The taste is so much fresher and more open: Wonderful rich sweetness, elegant ripe pineapple notes, the world's fruitiest camomile tea, the tiniest hint of caramel, good stable acidity, a mineral background. What makes this Spätlese wonderful is that it has the complex flavours of maturity (the typical lemon, peach and apricot aroma of young riesling is almost completely gone), but is still vibrant and fresh. It seems that, out of pure luck, I have opened it at a very good point in its development.
From a region not often talked about, a producer to watch out for.
This nicely cherry-coloured St. Laurent (a grape related to pinot noir) smells vaguely of cherries and red berries, and tastes pleasantly of red fruit, with a hint of herbs and earth, very smooth, with no tannins or acidity to speak of.
White crystals on the cork. Shiny, golden colour. A nose of (flowery) honey and stone fruit, with a faint hint of mineral; peach. In the mouth honey, smooth, caramelised peach, very smooth, a little spice, nicely aged. At first, we noticed a little malt in the finish (think malt beer), but that disappeared after 15 minutes or so; a little bitter towards the finish - not entirely unpleasant though. It made me want to have a soft, not too sweet cheese cake.
A nicely aged Riesling that was very drinkable but lacked that little something to be truly, truly memorable.
Nice straw colour.
Smells of ripe green apple, a little grassy.
In the mouth, fresh nice apple fruit, with very noticeable sweetness (bordering on the off- dry category), good freshness, a light body (lighter than the actual 13% would make you expect), nice fresh acidity, a hint of nuttiness and minerality in the background.
This Riesling from yet another Mosel tributary, the Saar, has a very understated smell, in fact, apart from a little ripe grape and mineral hints, it has little smell at all.
The taste is all ripe fruit as well, "yellow" taste, sweet ripe grapes again, dried herbs, some honey, fairly concentrated. This is a very ripe and smooth style of Riesling, very well made I'm sure, and great for people who can't have too much acidity, but frankly, I was looking for something a bit livelier, and this seems prematurely aged somehow.
This is not a summer wine. Very likely the "boring"-ranking will seem very unfair once I've tried the second bottle of this on some chilly october day. But right now, it didn't work for me.
Not many things in life beat a late harvest Riesling from the Mosel - sweet, yes, but usually well balanced with acidity and mineral that combine to a perfect sensation that is way too elegant and vibrant to be simply considered a sweet dessert wine. On top of that many of these wines are low on alcohol too. One of my favourite producers of sweet Riesling is Reinhold Haart, a small family owned estate overlooking the Mosel river in the old winemaking village of Piesport.
Mosel Tributary with 5 letters? RUWER
Rieslings from the Ruwer are known for their strong acidity and their slim elegance. From the Schlosskellerei (more commonly known as Maximin Grünhaus), one of the three top estates from there, comes this delightful cabinet:
From Baden's interesting, but little known sub-region of Markgräflerland,an area between Freiburg and Basel, named after the ancestral territory of the margraves of Baden, comes another unexpectedly serious, yet fairly priced Pinot Noir:
Surprisingly dark and dense cherry red.
Concentrated smell of earthy cherries, a few plums and leafy forest floor. Very very promising.
