04. 22. 2013

Sippin’ On Slate-y Juice

I recently attended a tasting of Dr. Loosen Rieslings led by Ernst Loosen. What a treat. I arrived at Grape + Bean, one of my favorite vino haunts, to be greeted by Mr. Loosen (or Ernie as he refers to himself) seated on a stool sipping some Hefeweisen. The quote of the night:

It’s funny how winemakers, somms and wine geeks alike hightail it to the bar for a beer after hours. Makes sense, I used to go for a foamy frosted glass after a long day of staff and/or industry tastings. (sounds like a rough life, right.) A refreshing cleanse of the palate is always welcome. Ernie said that he likes to “keep it very much like the Australian winemakers”. Ditto dude.

Ernie told tales of growing up at the Dr. Loosen estate that has been in his family for over 200 years, since 1787. He spoke of sipping as a six year old from tiny glasses of Riesling at both lunch and dinner and of the varying winemaking styles from his paternal and maternal sides. His great grandfather believed dry Rieslings were the superior showing of the grape while his maternal side felt the off-dry and sweet Rieslings were really the only way to go. They were both right. The estate now produces both styles. He also reminisced of dinner parties where the Loosen estate’s Rieslings were tasted all the way back to 1900 with ’53 and ’71 being particularly good years. How do I get invited to that dinner!

We tasted through 5 of Dr. Loosen’s Rieslings and 1 Eiswein. All delicious, the standouts for me were the Erdener Trepchen Kabinett ’11, a zippy and effervescent off-dry riesling and the Ürziger Würtzgarten Ausleses Gold Cap ’06.

That ’06 botrytis is killer- a great vintage and perfect growing conditions in the Mosel Valley for noble rot- the petrol was fuming. Yum. For those of you wondering about all this talk of botrytis, noble rot and gasoline (sounds delicious, right), botryris- aka noble rot- is a fungus that attacks grapes. But this is no ordinary fungus, it’s the fungus of all funguses. This is the stuff of dreams folks. Winemakers grit their teeth and chew their nails hoping that the perfect storm of weather elements will converge and invite the botrytis to show up and attack their grapes. Those grapes are then hand selected during harvest and used in the making of certain types of Rielsing, Sauternes and Tokaji. They tend to produce a petrol-y, gasoline note on the nose. Not to worry there’s no gas in your wine, it’s just that yummy fungus.