For the past 4 days or so, I've been suffering with a cold picked up
from Andrew. Tonight, enough of my sense of smell had returned that I
felt comfortable opening up a bottle with some fish tacos:

2006 St. Urbans Hof Riesling Ockfener Bockstein Kabinett (8% ABV)
nose: limes and a hint of petrol
palate: medium body, good acidity, limes, slightly sweeet finish

A very nice, citrusy, balanced wine, it was too big and too sweet for a
classic kabinett. More like a Spätlese in weight, it was nice enough
with the food but not quite crisp enough for us.

Mark Lipton
--
alt.food.wine FAQ: http://winefaq.hostexcellence.com

On Apr 23, 11:35 pm, Mark Lipton > wrote:
> For the past 4 days or so, I've been suffering with a cold picked up
> from Andrew. Tonight, enough of my sense of smell had returned that I
> felt comfortable opening up a bottle with some fish tacos:
>
> 2006 St. Urbans Hof Riesling Ockfener Bockstein Kabinett (8% ABV)
> nose: limes and a hint of petrol
> palate: medium body, good acidity, limes, slightly sweeet finish
>
> A very nice, citrusy, balanced wine, it was too big and too sweet for a
> classic kabinett. More like a Spätlese in weight, it was nice enough
> with the food but not quite crisp enough for us.

There were a lot of weather problems in Germany in 1906 and the wines
have been reported to be very variable as a result. Some picked very
early because of the rain and rot problems. It sounds as if you have
to consider the wines nearly estate by estate for 2006. Usually there
is no problem with plenty of acid in the rather cold Saar region. Of
course if one makes the wine with much residual sugar, this tends to
mask the acid and any possible bitterness. I wonder if St. Urbans Hof
made any halb-trocken in 2006. That might be more to your taste.
However finding good examples of trocken and halb-trocken can be a
problem in many parts of the US. My only Ockfener Bockstein has come
from Dr. Fischer. The auslese often keeps very well and has enough
acid for balance - some of the 1976 auslesen are still holding. In
more recent years St. Urbans Hof has developed a high reputation.

On Apr 24, 12:35 pm, Mark Lipton > wrote:
> A very nice, citrusy, balanced wine, it was too big and too sweet for a
> classic kabinett. More like a Spätlese in weight, it was nice enough
> with the food but not quite crisp enough for us.

Welcome to 2006!
Given the levels of ripeness/residual sugar in the vintage, I've found
that to be the case with 06s so far at the lower Pradikat levels.
Martin Kerpen's Wehlener Sonnenuhr Kabinett (which is a beauty and
worth hunting for, btw) and Selbach Oster's basic 'Kabinett' are the
only 06 Kabinetts I've had so far that actually felt like Kabinetts -
most of the rest have felt like Spatlesen or Auslesen, either lacking
the acidity to balance the sweetness or coming off as Spatlese/Auslese
trockens that were fermented too long to leave too little residual
sugar.

Salil