TNs: Hamtopia II, featuring 2001 Mosel Rieslings

[Michael Malinoski]

On nearly the same date two years ago, a small group of us got together for the first Hamtopia celebration, which was a cooking, eating and drinking excuse built around Mike having purchased a couple of whole country hams from a farm in Kentucky for us. I can’t recall exactly where this year’s hams came from, but they were every bit as delicious as those from a few years back. As before, we decided to get together and eat the bounty in all sorts of different preparations over at Greg’s house, with a ton of great wine to go with the diverse culinary creations.

Starters:

NV Krug Champagne Brut Grande Cuvée. Greg set the early tone, greeting us all with a bottle of Krug showing off a beautiful clear yellow-gold color with a very refined bead. The bouquet is immediately gratifying—caressing the nose with classy aromas of apples, pie crust, blanched nuts, nutmeg spice and toasty yeast. In the mouth, it has effortless balance, with core flavors of light caramel, baked apple, ginger and yeast augmented by light touches of spice in the airy top notes. It’s just classy all around, and a great way to start any evening.

1990 Peter Lauer Riesling Sekt Reserve Brut Saar. I liked this wine disgorged in October 2012 a good deal. It’s bright gold in color, with an evocative and lifted Riesling bouquet of kerosene, slate, cider, cantaloupe and ground nutmeg aromas that are really pleasing. In the mouth, it shows great life and verve to go with rich foamy flavors of apple juice, lemon tea, pink grapefruit and yellow tropical fruit slices. It expands out quite nicely in the mouth, but with an excellent nick of acidity driving through the light sweetness and carrying it along to a very cleansing finish.

2011 Azienda Agricola Valentini Cerasuolo d'Abruzzo. This is a wonderfully geeky style of rose wine, and I spent a good long while tasting and thinking about it. To begin, it’s a rusty orange-pink sort of color in appearance, and it delivers a unique and captivatingly funky bouquet that leads right out with musky horse’s ass sorts of notes but quickly follows that up with even funkier bits of rawhide leather, singed iron, dried sweat, fecund boggy earth and wild red berry aromas that somehow pull together into a fascinatingly cohesive blend that keeps pulling one back for more. In the mouth, it’s cleaner all around, with a broad and expansive texture to it and plenty of volume behind the flavors of cranberry, limestone, dried strawberries and chalk. Manly, sort of embracing (rather than cutting) acidity adds an interesting dimension, especially as the wine fleshes out more and more with time and air. It’s not an easy wine to adequately describe, but I loved its singular personality and its various thought-provoking qualities.

2001 Mosel Rieslings:

All sorts of red wines were starting to get opened as the various chefs were working on their dishes, and I was re-assigned out to the porch to organize three flights of 2001 Mosel Rieslings for a blind tasting. People knew which wines were in each of the flights, but not the order in which they were served.

Flight One -- Kabinett:

2001 Joh. Jos. Christoffel Erben Riesling Ürziger Würzgarten Kabinett Mosel Saar Ruwer. The first wine here features light and airy aromas of lime zest, apple, white peach, slate, quince and powdered minerals. In the mouth, it’s fun and juicy, with an enjoyably mouthwatering quality to the delicious flavors of tropical fruits, apple, cream and spice. It has an easy, effortless balance to it, with solid gripping texture and precise acidity. It’s really excellent right now, but has plenty of life left, too. What a great start.

2001 Willi Schaefer Riesling Graacher Himmelreich Kabinett Mosel Saar Ruwer. This has the darkest color of any wine in the flight, and it delivers lusher aromas of apricots, peach slices, slate and graphite. It’s still showing its baby fat, with lush, creamy, thick yellow tropical fruit flavors and some kerosene accents atop soft acidity lurking below. It trails behind the others for me, and several people opined that it seems to need more time.

2001 Selbach-Oster Riesling Zeltinger Sonnenuhr Kabinett Mosel Saar Ruwer. This wine is quite nice on the nose, with engaging hints of muskiness encircling the core aromas of baked apples, pear, chalk and flint. In the mouth, it has a very pleasing sweetness level, nice easy weight, a fine luscious texture and very tasty flavors of apple, white peach, musk melon and fun spices. This is drinking quite well.

2001 Joh. Jos. Prüm Riesling Wehlener Sonnenuhr Kabinett Mosel Saar Ruwer. This was universally recognized by the assembled tasters as the Prum, with its tell-tale aromas of sulfur, smoke and limestone popping right to the fore, and its spritzy mineral underbelly supporting the evocative aromas of applesauce, white peaches, lime, chalk and pretty apple blossoms. In the mouth, it’s like a live wire—with driving and cutting acidity providing it with a sense of intensity and verve that just perfectly enlivens the flavors of peach, apple, smoke, slate and lime. The spice accents are delightful and the reserved sweetness levels are ideally suited to the weight and structure of the wine. It’s simply delicious and my wine of the flight.

Flight Two – Spätlese:

2001 Joh. Jos. Prüm Riesling Wehlener Sonnenuhr Spätlese Mosel Saar Ruwer. This is truly delightful-smelling, leading right out with a strong shot of struck match aroma to go along with layered scents of graphite, lime, pear, petrol and classy Mosel funk. It’s wonderful in the mouth, too, with spritzy flavors of peach, lime, melon and mineral. There’s a great sense of lift, freshness and zest to it, with perfectly cleansing acidity to go with the sweet fruit flavors. It’s elegant yet giving, airy yet substantial. I could drink it all night.

2001 Joh. Jos. Christoffel Erben Riesling Ürziger Würzgarten Spätlese Mosel Saar Ruwer. This is considerably more tightly-coiled and introspective on the nose, with quiet and restrained scents of pear, melon, spice and wool. Also, it comes across as a bit simpler than most on the palate, with mellow and circumspect flavors of lime, apple and tropical fruits. There are some fans of this wine around the table, but for me it seems like it’s still developing, and it trailed behind many others for me.

2001 Joh. Jos. Christoffel Erben Riesling Erdener Treppchen Spätlese Mosel Saar Ruwer. This is just tremendously appealing to me on the nose, throwing out complex, layered and penetrating aromas of peaches, star fruit, musky spices, yellow pixie stick powder and slate that are bright and lifted but also deep and full. In the mouth, it’s wonderfully expansive, creamy and loaded with lush, plush yellow fruit galore. It coats the tongue and lasts a good long while, but it’s also effortlessly balanced and beautiful. It was a tight call, but I had this as my wine of the flight.

Flight Three – Auslese:

2001 Joh. Jos. Prüm Riesling Graacher Himmelreich Auslese Mosel Saar Ruwer. Here one encounters a pure and taut nose of chalk, cantaloupe, lime pith, slate and yellow fruit aromas that are fresh, lively and almost crystalline in tone. It’s excellent on the palate, one of the sweetest wines of the whole tasting, but with outstanding slate, petrol and mineral undertones all the way through. It just feels quite pure, direct and bright despite the robust sweetness levels. I like it a good deal, but it’s just a bit overshadowed by the next wine in the flight, I’m afraid.

2001 Joh. Jos. Prüm Riesling Wehlener Sonnenuhr Auslese Mosel Saar Ruwer. Oh boy, this is the real deal right from the very start, beginning with the mind-blowingly lovely aromas of diesel fuel, blue slate, peach juice, white pepper, prickle pear and wispy bits of sulfur. Then in the mouth, it just crackles with effervescent drive, yet shows fantastic depth, layering and concentration of flavor, too. Lush but bursting flavors of sweet peaches, musk melon, lemon and apple are powerful but caressing, rounded but popping fresh. I think it’s just great, and I had it as my wine of the flight.

2001 Willi Schaefer Riesling Graacher Domprobst Auslese Mosel Saar Ruwer. This comes across as a bit dull on the nose after the previous two wines—giving off pale scents of white flowers, peaches and herb that are a bit compact and narrow. In the mouth, it’s a bit sleepy and unyielding, but also more cloyingly sweet than most, with fruit flavors of pineapple, mango, grapefruit and other tropical elements. I don’t think this is showing its best at the moment.

2001 Joh. Jos. Christoffel Erben Riesling Ürziger Würzgarten Auslese Mosel Saar Ruwer. This is quite pretty and elegant on the nose, with fine-toned aromas of peach, quince, star fruit and limestone. In the mouth, it has a delightfully musky peach and nectarine flavor core that’s accented by mineral and smoke bits. It has lovely sweetness and creamy texture, but might lack a bit of length just now, so try again in a few years.

2001 Selbach-Oster Riesling Zeltinger Schlossberg Auslese Mosel Saar Ruwer. This is a bit of an oddball aromatically, but with its own unique personality informed by scents of wool, cool stones, pineapple and grapefruit. It’s pure and sweet on the palate, with peach, quince paste, lime juice and grapefruit flavors that are lighter-bodied, airier and a bit more open-knit than the others here. Even though it’s a bit unusual, I admit I like it.

Red wines:

2001 August Kesseler Spätburgunder Assmannshäuser Höllenberg Trocken Rheingau. There’s a rather leafy, red berry-driven bouquet to this wine, with enjoyably savory aromas of dusty earth, loam, mushroom, old cracked leather and red currants. It’s direct and savory on the palate, with dark currant and cranberry fruit flavors that aren’t quite as complex as on the nose, but with no tannin interference, lighter body and rounded acidity. The finish shows a bit inelegant with prickly herbal edges, but on the whole this is interestingly different and enjoyable.

1981 Marqués de Riscal Rioja Reserva. Although I didn’t see any specific designation on the label, there’s no Crianza listed in CellarTracker, so for now I’m calling this the Reserva. It’s still a healthy color despite paling garnet edges. The nose is sweet and caramel-tinged, with finer overtones of crushed red flowers, red currants, cranberries, suede leather and mulling spices that are very engaging. It’s finely-resolved on the palate, showing mellow and easy-going raspberry and red currant fruit, aged earth and a flowery inner mouth perfume. The ethereal finish is floral and well-balanced, and the wine overall is just extremely nice to drink at the moment.

2001 Bodegas Hermanos Peciña Rioja Señorío de P. Peciña Reserva. There’s a fun and exotic quality to the bouquet of this wine, with its aromas of plums, wild blueberries, potting soil, cedar shavings, star anise, menthol, minerals and spice box. It’s cool-toned in the mouth, with dark, direct flavors of blue and purple fruits, sexy spices and earth. There are some fudgy tannins sneaking in around the edges and a bit of pinching happening on the finish, but overall it feels well-concentrated, juicy, even-toned, smooth-textured and tasty-flavored.

2000 La Rioja Alta Rioja Gran Reserva 904. I was probably the last person in the room to pick up on it, but this bottle was CORKED.

1998 Araujo Estate Cabernet Sauvignon Eisele Vineyard Napa Valley. This is outstanding--starting with the succulent, juicy, deep and classically-styled aromas of cherry paste, cassis, black currants, campfire embers and tobacco leaf. In the mouth, it’s smooth, glossy and refined, but with great push and subtle power. It possesses a fine-knit texture and lovely cherry, raspberry and cassis flavors. There’s plenty of structure for further aging, but it’s drinking fine and classy right now.

2010 Dard et Ribo Hermitage. There’s an incredibly inky nose here that features feral and masculine aromas of black olives, cracked black pepper, charred earth, singed iron and duck fat. It’s much the same in the mouth, with earthy blackberry, black currant and black bean flavors to go along with olive tapenade, cracked pepper and bacon. It’s obviously still a bit primary, but it’s doesn’t seem particularly tannic to me. It’s big and black, but freshly acidic and rather drinkable at this tender young age. It’s best to wait a few years, though, to be sure.


-Michael