Hi folks.
Following my annual excursion to the middle Mosel you may now have my
impressions :-)
On 2001:
That vintage reconfirmed it's position as one of the most charming and
attractive Spätlese vintages ever. These wines were virtually unchanged
from last year and so would appear to keep well for some time. The Auslese
wines were somewhat less consistent last year, imho, and still are. Those
that were good then now did fairly well with a little bit of added
smoothness and maturity. Not bad at all, but I still prefer those
Spätleses, for some reason.
On 2002:
Another good vintage with fine quality from QbA to Beerenauslese level.
There seemed to be a bit of inconsistency however, as many growers offered
the full range from pedestrian mediocrity to outstanding specimens of wine
making without any relationship to quality classing. With one, his Kabinett
was glorious, his Auslese unremarkable, with another it could be the other
way around. Another would have very fine dry wines and less appealing sweet
ones where yet another had the opposite. It would appear then that this
vintage had been more difficult for the growers to handle well. Careful
selection therefore seemed more important than for 2001.
Compared to the previously mentioned Spätleses many of the more succesful
wines seemed to me to have an added layer of complexity and hidden nuances
begging exploration in the years to come and there were some very good
Beerenausleses and Eiswein.
The classing Prädikat system also seem to be crumbling, making it less
useful as a buying guide - you have to taste the wine, read the label
carefully and ask the wine maker outright to make sure what you really get -
at one point I bought a dry Kabinett, which by itself would have been an
abomination, but that had 12% of alcohol and so really was a lean Auslese
(the grower confirmed it was 95 Oechsle...).
It is also notable that prices have risen all over. The once almost
implausible bargains that were the rule with top Germans are now harder to
find. Top Auslese and above now command about the same prices in Euros that
they once did in Marks, in fact a doubling in 4 years.
On 2003:
The grapes survived the spectacular heat of this summer up to late august
and looked very good. Quite a bit of rain and cold weather in September
have pumped them up to bursting some growers said, however, and they prayed
for dry and sunny weather till mid-October (this was 2 weeks ago) so that
excess water might evaporate and thereby raise sugar and acid levels. It
would seem that we run a small risk of having diluted and flat wines,
relatively speaking, but many were fairly confident that another usable
vintage was in the offing. Time will show. Otherwise, harvest of lesser
wine was well under way then, pretty early, but I've no info on these
grapes.
Fwiw,
Anders


--
antispam: personal part of real mailaddress is backwards...