An Evening with Terry Theise

Terry Theise is a prominent and highly-regarded importer of German and Austrian wines as well as estate Champagnes. Thanks to “ob2s” over at the Wine Library TV Forums, myself and a couple of other Vayniacs were able to attend a German Wine Society tasting of many of his 2006 vintage Rieslings as well as a couple of older surprise wines to add some additional variety to the evening.

I spent a couple of minutes speaking with Terry and also pestered him with several questions during the tasting and found him to be very friendly, knowledgeable and very approachable. And if I needed any more reason to like the guy, the wines he poured for us were exquisite.

Theise began by telling us about the remarkable 2006 vintage. In his words, the vintage is “outsized”, where grapes in the middle Rhine and Mosel were so ripe that wines are mostly at least one and perhaps more than one quality level better than what the label indicates. In other words, wines labeled Kabinett are actually likely to be made from grapes with at least Spätlese if not Auslese measurements on the Oechsle scale. This vintage was unfortunately not so stellar in the Pfalz.

This may have been the first 10+ wine tasting I have ever been to in quite some time where I genuinely liked every wine that hit my glass. However, considering how much of a Riesling fan I am, I cannot say I was surprised. If Bonny Doon's Randall Grahm actually did start a “National Riesling Association”, I would join. Heck, I would be President of my local chapter.

Here was the lineup from the tasting:

2006 Buntsandstein Spätlese Trocken Theo Minges – Pfalz ($27) - struck me as the most classic of the bunch on the nose, apples and apricots, a little imbalanced towards alcohol on the rear palate. Overall very nice.

1997 Riesling Kogl Reserve Erich Salomon – Kremstal (unknown) – the only Austrian wine of the evening, only moderate petrol notes despite its age, tangy, crisp and persimmon flavors. A very interesting wine.

2006 Zeltinger Himmelreich Kabinett Halbtrocken Selbach Oster – Mosel ($24) – very rich with honey and overripe peach, long finish, excellent.

2006 Zeltinger Schlossberg Kabinett Selbach Oster – Mosel ($22) – candied orange nose, explosive fruit in mouth with little minerality. Seemed like the most un-German of the group.

2006 "Soil to Soul" Kabinett Strub – Rheinhessen ($16) – Designed to compete with wines like Leitz's “Dragonstone”, tight nose, peach and minerals, explosion of flavor on the tongue with ripe peaches and apricots coated with powdered sugar. Price aside, this was one of my favorite wines of the evening and at only $16, the QPR on this wine is outstanding.

2006 Dhron Hofberg Spätlese A.J. Adam – Mosel ($38) – this one definitely represents at least a quality level or two upgrade. The nose is very much that of a dessert wine with apricot notes being dominant. This was a little fat for my tastes but it was still very good.

2006 Meddersheimer Rheingrafenberg Spätlese “Eisendell” Hexamer – Nahe ($29) – My other favorite of the evening, very sharp, stark mineral nose with a little smoke and almost a green undercurrent. Mouth explodes with peach, honey, tropical fruits and minerals. Outstanding.

2006 Munsterer Dautenpflanzer Spätlese Kruger Rumpf – Nahe ($24) – very tight nose, sharp, apple and apricot, excellent finish. Overall very good.

2006 Oestricher Lenchen Spätlese “303” Spreitzer – Nahe ($48) – probably my least favorite of the evening, a fruity syrupy nose and the syrup continues to the tongue coming across as a bit cloying.

1994 Dorsheimer Pittermannchen Spätlese Schlossgut Diel – Nahe ($62) – This wine was an accidental insertion into the tasting. It was supposed to be another '06 from Rheingau but the wineshop packed the wrong wine...and I am so glad they did. This wine brings the petrol in spades, gas station and car exhaust rather than diesel, this wine smells like the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway during rush hour. Deliciously oily on the tongue with a long finish of ripe Fuji apples. This wine is like a cologne for auto mechanics and is amazingly still available for sale in the primary wine market. Since I was driving that night, I had been diligently spitting at this tasting but I swallowed every drop of this.

2006 Leiwener Laurentiuslay Auslese Carl Loewen – Mosel ($40) – honeyed mineral nose with a slight vegetal element, maintains solid acidity with explosive honey flavors. Very good.

The quality of these wines, overall, lends evidence to Terry's statement that, “Grand Cru vineyards are the earth's erogenous zones.”

Grand Cru Rieslings from Alsace

It was my great pleasure this past Thursday night to attend a Grand Cru Alsace Riesling tasting led by Lisa Airey, CWE and sponsored by the French Wine Society. Ms. Airey began the event with an thorough educational overview of Alsace and the 51 recognized Grand Cru vineyards of the region while most of us indulged in a nice selection of fine French cheeses. Even though some of these INAO-delimited vineyards sites are quite large (a few in excess of 100 acres), the total of all wines produced from the grapes grown there constitute only approximately 5% of the region's entire annual output. Because of this, wines from these recognized vineyards come at a somewhat higher but hardly astronomical pricetag. The prices for the dry wines from this tasting range from ~$25 - $75 per bottle, with the mast majority coming in at under $50.

Prior to this even and to the best of my recollection, I had only ever tasted one Grand Cru Alsatian Riesling in my life and that was several years ago. As such, I definitely walked in the door a complete neophyte on the subject. Furthermore, I fretted in advance that my still-developing palate would not be able to accurately discern the nuance that separate the 10 dry Rieslings that would be poured at the tasting.

As it happens, I needn't have worried at all. The degree of variance among these 10 wines from 8 different vineyards from 5 different vintages was truly immense and disccerning the unique characteristics of each wine was no trouble at all. The chore turned out to be deciding which of the wines I liked the most as nary a bad wine was poured.

Working north to south through the region, here is the list of Grand Cru Rieslings that were poured, tasted and discussed in flights of two:

2004 Marc Kreydenweiss Riesling Wiebelsberg
2004 Marc Kreydenweiss Riesling Kastelberg
2006 Weinbach Riesling Schlossberg
2005 Otter Organic Riesling Schlossberg
2004 Josmeyer Riesling Brand
2003 Ehrhart Riesling Hengst
2005 Schlumberger Riesling Saering
2002 Lucien Albrecht Riesling Pfingstberg
2005 Lucien Albrecht Riesling Pfingstberg
2004 Zind-Humbrecht Riesling Rangen de Thann Clos St. Urbain

As Ms. Airey pointed out, these are wines that were intended to age for 10 years or more so our drinking them so young was a little on order with mass infanticide. However, the differences in character between a hot vintage like 2005 and the other vintages was telling, as were the stylistic differences between producers and geographic and geologic differences between vineyards (although, as one would expect, discerning which factor was most at play proved to be difficult). The older wines, specifically the '02 Albrecht and the '03 Ehrhart, were both already showing the expected “petrol” notes that come with age (which register on my senses as a combination of diesel fuel and freshly-cut pine boards), most especially the Ehrhart.

The '05 Schlumberger struck me as the most Germanic of the wines, not straying far from what I normally associate with Mosel character, while the '05 Albrecht brought the most rich tropical fruit. Contrast that with the '04 Zind-Humbrecht, which was heavy on musky honey, jasmine and herbs and presented very distinct barnyard notes.

The '02 Albrecht was definitely my favorite of the night. It is drinking wonderfully now, appearing to be in the midst of its transition phase between youthful fruit and elderly petrol with spice and fresh tartness. I was already a big fan of this winemaker's Cremant d'Alsace before I walked in the door and his wines continue to rise in my estimation.

To finish off the event, we were poured the 2004 Zind-Humbrecht Riesling Brand Vendanges Tardives, with its decadent sweetness and super fig bomb nose.