TN for the Spätlese of the Vintage? 2014 Weingut Reinhold Haart Piesporter Goldtröpfchen Riesling (Germany, Mosel,) AP 13

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John Trombley
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Joined: Sat Dec 29, 2007 6:46 pm
Location: Piqua, Ohio, United States of America - USA

TN for the Spätlese of the Vintage? 2014 Weingut Reinhold Haart Piesporter Goldtröpfchen Riesling (Germany, Mosel,) AP 13

Post by John Trombley »

6/24/2017 rated 94 points: 2014 Weingut Reinhold Haart Piesporter Goldtröpfchen Riesling Spätlese (Germany, Mosel,) AP 13 (AP 14 is the rare Auction Wine, if it ever gets into the United States). Village Corner, Ann Arbor; Rudi Wiest, Cellars International, San Marcos, CA. (Also available from Vieux Vins, CA.) 8.0 percent alcohol BV; residual sugar 77.00 g/l, (about 8 percent); total acidity 7.9 g/l (numbers from producer website). Served from Coravin to Impitoyable at refrigerator temp.

The short version: Pale straw, yielding full peach juice and deft redcurrant notes edged with cold cream. A decidedly sweet but entirely balanced wine, with a slightly muscular quality showing the modern and classic style/terroir of wines from this site. An attractive bitter twist of ripe lime zest is situated on the mid-palate that has receded a bit, but will fill in, I predict, at the expense of the citrus elements. Spun and powdered sugar and ripe redcurrant on the finish, enveloped with an aura of upper register overtones. Drink now or 2025-2040. Highly recommended, but good luck finding it. I searched around and bought up any I could find at a reasonable price--and can you believe it, one supplier threw in an extra bottle for free! I think that zero dollars beat the Wine Searcher low!! 94 RPP/100

Very pale green-yellow (straw), with a minor amount of particulates now (tartrates)?.

At first quite cold and dumb. Then forward sweet juicy peach with a hint of cold cream (rose petal and wool fat).

Considerable residual for type but balanced by crispness and fruit; both ripe lime and tangerine zests are the fuel from which this wine will grow and that even now gives it an attractive energy and bitter twist that could at this stage be suspected to be a light mid-palate, but is not, I think. Powdered spun sugar and very fine high-toned notes on the finish, also with a very lush texture unlikely to be due to Botrytis.

As the wine warms the creamy, energetic, and lime sensations increase in balance with the sense of sweetness. This can be drunk now by rockheads or later by us normal folks. A great Mosel Spätlese, the best of the few I've tasted from this vintage so far.

Reminds me of some of the best late harvest Goldtröpfchens from yesteryear, for instance 1975s and 1979s, before the Liebfraumilch industry tried to replace the quality stuff with a wine called Piesporter Michelsberg, that is almost never made within the appellation limits for Piesport village wines and can come from an enormous area, and ais usually not even Riesling. Drink now-2035. 94/100 RPP.

This estate is the current standard-bearer for Piesport, and has accomplished a complete re-imaging of the tank-car styling of just 15 years ago, and that's a very short turnaround for something like that, and in the face of the government-sponsored dumping of Two Buck Chuck knockoffs (some actually sold for less!) competition. We now (in part by Theo Haart's refuting the nonsense that you can make this fine wine at double the yields that other regions would need to produce wines at this quality level) can actually get a sense of the terroir of this, one of the great plantation places for Riesling, in the entire world. It tastes of floral honey (we could always get that), but now we sense the redcurrant or blackcurrant slightly weedy (Sauvignon blanc/Sancerre) flavors, and a very ripe lime-peel note, something that seems contradictory, but it's there.

The only complaint I ever have is how expensive the Ausleses are these days (they sell briskly even so). However, the Spätleses are styled, when possible, as what Mosel Fine Wines calls 'drinking Ausleses', and can be good values especially when late-released. To look for.
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