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| SAAR
“Erich Weber has gone his maverick winemaking ways…following procedures that would have been familiar from 50 - 75 years ago.” He farms two soil types: red slate and blue slate, from the villages of Niedermennig and Krettnach respectively. |
| Niedermenniger Herrenberg Spätlese |
| Whereas a typical harvest for modern riesling is somewhere between 50 and 70+ hectoliters per hectare, Erich Weber’s very old riesling vines yield harvests that score more frequently in the twenties. The Herrenberg is planted in red slate, facing southeast, and the vines are "würzelecht" (ungrafted). Weber doesn’t use any stainless steel in his cellar; the wines are fermented in individual wooden barrels, using natural yeasts. This means that the fermentation will take place over the course of months rather than weeks, and that the wines pick up a great deal of texture in this process. Most of Hofgut Falkenstein’s wines are fermented dry. They would in fact be aggressively tart, were it not for the oxygenated texture from the barrel fermentation and aging, which balance the acids in a rather clever and inventive fashion.
Find lovely aromas of peach and peach pit, with a gripping mineral profile and beautifully textured. There is a perfect balance of acid (9g) with residual sugar (10g) and alcohol (12%), with a classic presence and uncommon persistence on the palate. Even with the ten grams of residual sugar, the overall impression is that of a dry finish. |
| Krettnacher Altenberg Spatlese |
| The blue-slate special, this from a site with a little more dirt —clay and loam— on top of the rocks, and comes from the best part of the Altenberg, which is South-South exposure. This wine is finer and more delicate, although the numerical statistics are the same as for the Herrenberg Spätlese above. Beautiful apple and yellow fruit aromas, rolls gloriously across the palate, and finishes in a glorious burst of mineral and finish aromatics. |
| Krettnacher Euchariusberg Auslese |
| This one comes from a patch of 80 year-old ungrafted Riesling vines. A true masterpiece, a faceful of apples and golden fruits: peach and quince. A finish as long as the name. The tale of the tape is, acid (9.5) residual sugar (40 grams) and alcohol (11,5%)… This wine shows a masterfully eloquent presence on the palate, perfectly integrated minerality and beautifully interpolated ripe acidity. The texture is quite notable, enveloping mouthfeel. |
| Niedermenniger Sonnenberg Auslese |
| Wine Advocate, 92 Pts (#167,
Oct 2006) D "The 2005 Niedermenninger Sonnenberg Riesling Auslese A.P. #4 smells (given it’s Auslese, surprisingly) invigoratingly lemony, salty and smoky. On the palate, it exhibits ravishing refinement and clarity, with juicy pear, honeydew melon, pear pip, lemon, and grapefruit wreathed in high-toned herbal essences. Richly mouthfilling, yet almost weightless in its wafting personality, this Riesling of ten and a half percent alcohol manages to demonstrate how extract is entirely compatible with delicacy. The wine finishes subtly and memorably with lemon, pear nectar, herbs, and subtly bitter pear and apple pit notes. Weber’s strong and enthusiastic private customer base drinks his wines young, so if you latch onto a bottle of this, you can be one of the few to test my hypothesis that it will add complexity and retain freshness for at least a dozen years." |
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