Herzog von Württemberg, Maulbronner Eilfingerberg, Riesling Kabinett trocken, 2011

This article made me smile despite the conclusion. I have so many fond memories of Maulbronn, a favourite S-bahn destination; schwäbische Maultaschen and Shakespeare in the courtyard.

You will be aware that the House of Württemberg have changed their enologists every couple of years in recent times. Present new master of the caves is the young Moriz Just (fresh from Spain), who was preceded for four years by Chistian Lintz who has never stayed for long in any wine estate. While stabilitas loci is no more the motto among modern winemakers, a certain experience of estate, vines and soil should not be despised too quickly.

The Maulbronner Eilfingerberg vineyard still has supreme Riesling potential, I think. Planting a part of it with Pinot blanc may not have been exactly a wise decision; the one that I tasted last year was rough to rude, very green and without any finesse. A clumsy boor.

A vertical tasting of elder vintages would be a very interesting and rewarding endeavour, I am sure - I still remember fondly the 1983 and 1985 vintages that I tasted in Tübingen (where I studied history - among other subjects). It was one of my favourite old professors who had introduced me to the estate... R.I.P.

I had received a test bottle on Thursday (upon being informed of the fracas, Moriz Just, the new enologist or master of the caves, had sent me one, free of charge) and we tested it with four people on Saturday (two US tasters, two Germans).
This came out much better than the two ramblers' distressing experience would suggest, so it might have been a bottle problem at that time, or - much more likely - a better second filling now. The present AP number of my bottle is 233 31 12.

The wine's nose is downright remarkable, indicating and promising a quality (and some typical characteristics of this specific, legendary vineyard) that the body and especially the finish would not quite be able to uphold later - alas.
One might suspect me of positive "label bias" (I know how the Maulbronner Eilfingerberg Rieslinge are supposed to taste, so of course interpretative projection is always a danger, and hence the importance of blind tastings). My co-tasters, not overly familiar with German Rieslinge, suspected an unoaked Chardonnay (their Riesling experience or exposition had limited primarily to sweet specimina) at first. However, it is a fairly typical dry Riesling to me already in its bouquet.
I noted an agrumic complex (mostly red orange), but neither citrus nor passion fruit nor elderblossom (FAR off track!) nor green apple (likely an understandable misperception of the slightly estered agrumic notes), as the accompanying wine expertise on the estate website would suggest to us.

The body remains extremely slim, and neither aeration nor time would allow it to unfold; because it cannot present more than it had to begin with. The structure displays the typical vertebral column that the good Eilfingerberge have (acid and strength, yet supple like a tempered blade - "lâme d'épée"). The estate's description tried to characterize the acidity as "vivacious", but unruly would be the better word. However, it is contained enough not to be perceived as boisterous. Not much development through its course, and a certain lack of differentiation. The wine could accompany a fat fish with a strong own taste (also a baked or roasted fish) and pheasant or smoked goose, and of course ostrich. It would be unkind with any more tenderly flavoured, elegant fish (such as pikeperch), and unsuitable for most red meats and most vegetarian dishes. However, Grünkohl (Germany) and sukuma wiki (Kenya) could match it VERY well.

Finish and aftertaste: nothing at all (!) except for a long acidic echo. The mention of a long echo ("langer Nachhall") in the estate expertise is thus not really wrong, but rather misleading. This wine breaks off abruptly after about 2/3 of its way, like as if it had been chopped off with a hatchet. The drinker thus is unpleasantly bereft of any development, finish, exposition; not just the tail is missing, but even the hind legs and the buttocks. This is the main disappointment that I had with this initially promising wine.

US perception: Ashy finish (one taster was reminded of charcoal). Both US tasters strongly insisted on oak, although that can hardly be (the Hofkammerkellerei uses steel tanks and large oaken vats with neutral taste). Mildly earthy.

One day later, we had occasion to compare this Riesling mentally to one Mosel (lightly and barely off-dry) by Markus Molitor that we had as dinner companion in Freiburg's presently best restaurant, the Kreuzblume. http://www.hotel-kreuzblume.de/en/
Menu list here: http://www.hotel-kreuzblume.de/en/menu-en
Molitor, the darling of wine scribes and guide publishers, who has also been variously mentioned in this blog, won the comparison hands-down with a much more mature and perfectly composed Riesling wine. While the Eilfingerberg has definitely more potential, Molitor's wine used its inherent qualities to the fullest, and this one did not.

So, to refocus on the original question, what went wrong here? The tasters can at best speculate, since neither of us was in the vineyard or in the cellars. Very likely, there was no vinification error whatsoever involved, at least not with this one second bottle, respectively this second wine filling.
Too high overall yield, as the ramblers wondered, *might* be a potential culprit. It could very well explain the slightly disappointing discrepancy between nose and the abruptly curtailed body. Another possibility is grape pre-selection. The estate of the ducal House of Württemberg does, like most VdP members, produce its yearly share of GGs (Große Gewächse). I have always been very wary of this money-making ploy because it too easily tends to downgrade and declassify the other wines of such a producer not just subjectively in public perception but also objectively in the GLASS itself. Where an estate pre-selects certain batches (meaning territionally advantaged sub-divisions within one vineyard, micro-parcels or "Gewanne" in German) for special care and fostering, this often tends to push down the rest of the wines. Also, grapes pre-destined for a later GG often undergo yield reduction in various ways, while the other grape batches are less rigorously treated. On the whole, this seems to be the most likely explanation to me, if I were to speculate. To be a bit more assured, a comparison to a contemporary 2011 Großes Gewächs from the same vineyard would be necessary.
On the whole, it simply breaks down to an economic assessment of short-time monetary gain balanced against the reputation of an estate and even a whole House (as here, since the winery has always occupied a place of special pride in the large and rather diversifed economic undertakings of the Württemberg family). I would rather be willing to pay two and a half Euros more per bottle of a really good and satisfying Kabinett (meaning 11 € for this one), or let's say 15 € for the occasional Spätlese, than an over-priced 24 Euros for the rather few produced bottles of a Großes Gewächs in a fancy-pancy bottle (such as the 2011 Stettener Brotwasser - the 2010 Maulbronner Eilfingerberg GG is at 17,50 €).