Reeling in the years with Lukas Krauß Silvaner - a Wine Rambler micro-vertical

When we first got into wine blogging - and you can add a "...son" to that and imagine us silver-haired connoisseurs absent-mindedly swirling a '78 Bordeaux above our huge mahagoni table to set the scene -, when we first got into wine blogging, we quickly learned there is one bow in the blogger's quiver that seldom misses: hyperbole. We learned that a nice bottle of wine is a revelation, an ordinary bottle of wine is boring you to tears, a good winemaker is a winemaking genius, and so on.

The lesson we have learned very well is that there doesn't have to be a whole lot behind a story to make it a good story. In that spirit, we offer you the great Wine Rambler vertical of Lukas Krauß Silvaner.

We started with the current 2010: Very light colour, a greenish tinge to the pale straw. Very fruity and floral smell, lemon balm (Zitronenmelisse), more than a hint of artificial peach aromatics, and someone smelled a sage-flavoured cough drop. Not unpleasant, but by common consent a little shallow. On the palate noticeable residual sugar, combined with the fairly prominent acidity that it is meant to balance out, not yet quite successfully at that stage. Hard to judge the ageing potential, so we don't want to be too harsh here. Nonetheless, a vintage that we would rather forget about, to be perfectly honest (boring).

2009, a completely different animal in built, even though echoes of the same aromatics can be traced: a certain lemonade-fruitiness is also in evidence, but built into a more traditional apple-flavoured substance. Slightly exotic, too, and vastly more powerful, displaying with panache the typical underhanded oomph of the 2009 vintage with a dry herbal touch. A slight bitterness that Torsten detected may well be the first sign of the onset of a more mature stage.(enjoyable)

2008: Now we're talking Silvaner. Wonderful deep and nuanced apple-scented smell, a more "natural" (whatever that is supposed to mean) type of fruit, elegantly light on the palate, with dry and focussed, well matured fruit, pumpkin pie, apples in a winter cellar, that kind of thing. That this was the winner was not seriously in doubt, although the 2009 had its supporters. (great)

Lukas Krauß is the most passionate advocate of Pfalz Silvaner there is, as witnessed on this very publication. Someone should tell him that he has produced a classic of the genre with his 2008. But best not to mention the 2010 when making that call, though. Or at least wait a little and see if it integrates better with time.