As early as the 2001 vintage, Germany produced an unprecedented abundance of very good to first-class dry Rieslings, some of which could even compete with the best wines from the classic strongholds for dry Rieslings in Lower Austria. This was made clear by an impressive comparative tasting with the vintage peaks of our Austrian neighbors, who were also able to enjoy a great vintage in 2001.
Almost exactly one year later, on December 12th, the current vintage with a total of about 40 wines from Germany and Austria was ready in the perfectly furnished tasting room of the Ebling-Windisch wine estate in Wallertheim, Rheinhessen, to face the critical judgment of an illustrious round of vintners, wine journalists, sommelliers, traders and wine lovers.
2002 was by no means a bad year, but at least in Germany it was nominally a more difficult year. All the more astonishing are the results, which at their peak even surpass the previous year. They clearly speak for the dynamics with which the development of this wine style, which has been treated stepmotherly in Germany for a long time, is progressing.
This is also supported by new, young and so far completely unknown talents, which are cheekily challenging the established wineries after only a few vintages. Oliver Spanier from the Battenfeld-Spanier wine estate in Rheinhessen and Tim Fröhlich from the Schäfer-Fröhlich wine estate in the Nahe region were representative for an extremely promising young generation of vintners. Particularly Spanier's Frauenberg caused spontaneous applause among all participants.
But in Austria, too, producers who were hardly known until recently are causing a sensation: Although he can no longer be counted among the very young winemakers, Kurt Angerer is still a rather fresh name in the Kamptal wine scene. So much the more pleasing is the excellent result of his Donatus, with which Angerer proves that he not only perfectly masters the handling of Grüner Veltliner.
In the absolute top, the Wachau Smaragde are still an indispensable yardstick, but the Wachau has long since not been the only source for great dry Rieslings in Austria. Especially in the Kamptal, the number of producers who know how to use the potential is growing steadily, while the long-established wine producers seem to even know how to improve. A prime example for this is the legendary Lyra by Willi Bründlmayer, which seems to outshine its already impressive vintages from the previous year, and Loimer's Steinmassl is not inferior to its grandiose counterpart from 2001.
In the Wachau itself, compared to 2001, Rieslings emerged that, without renouncing the typical, extremely present minerality, nevertheless mostly appear decidedly more fruit-driven, which gave them a much better standing at the tasting than was the case last year. At that time, most of the Wachau wines presented themselves completely closed and so unapproachable that they could partly not be evaluated meaningfully at all. This time, Emmerich Knoll alone seemed to be a little out of shape, while above all Prager, F.X. Pichler and Rudi Pichler, who is still often underestimated, came up trumps with brilliant wines.
So far the Rhine, so close the wine, one could say when looking at the results of the German producers in this friendly comparison. Quite often, it was difficult or even impossible to determine the origin of the samples, which were always served in pairs with one wine from Germany and one from Austria. Many a terroir that was clearly attributed to the Wachau region was, after all, within sight of the Rhine. Also qualitatively, the local top wines were in no way inferior to the impressive Austrians. Exactly the same number of wines from both countries made it into the top class of the world's greatest wines with scores between 95 and 100. Thereby, no region pushed itself conspicuously into the foreground. Bassermann-Jordan and Rebholz from the Palatinate, Künstler from the Rheingau, Emrich-Schönleber from the Nahe as well as Keller and Wittmann from Rheinhessen - the latter, by the way, being the only one with two wines besides F.X. Pichler. Pichler as the only one with two wines - shared the seats in the throne room.
The disappointments of the evening had less to do with the wines themselves than with their closures. Due to the high number of participants, two of the three available bottles per wine were opened and decanted from the beginning, so bottle fluctuations and also "creeping" cork taint were immediately noticed by our service team. About 30% of all bottles presented themselves accordingly not perfectly, had more or less clear cork taint or proved to be tired, dull or just clearly more restrained than the respective second or third bottle. For some wines, all 3 bottles were affected and even among the samples finally poured out, there were some that some participants remembered much better from earlier tastings. In the last case, an unfavorable development phase could be responsible for the somewhat muted taste impression, but everywhere where clear bottle fluctuations occurred, the suspicion of an influence by the closure is obvious even with wines that are not clearly corked. Unfortunately, in view of such a high number of affected bottles, the question arises as to how reliable an evaluation of wines can still be if the closure carries such a high risk of falsifying the result. How many wines are wrongly judged badly each year because a faulty cork falsifies the result?
One soon reacts hysterically: in the case of a wine in the sample, which once again did not want to taste like one of the best Rieslings of the world, it was - also by me - tipped to "creeping" cork without knowledge of the producer. After all, we noticed that the counter samples didn't taste any different either. That would have been hard to explain, too. It was the only wine with a screw cap.
The tasting took place on December 12, 2003 in the presentation rooms of the Ebling-Windisch winery in Wallertheim, Rheinhessen. All wines were decanted before the tasting and poured from neutral carafes. Thus, one German and one Austrian Riesling were always tasted blind in parallel. The ratings and descriptions were made by myself, a jury rating was not determined. Wines with three cork tastes and those that raised considerable doubts about the condition of the samples are not listed. Following the rather sportive character of the tasting, I did without giving exact point values.
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