Weingut Günther Steinmetz
Brauneberger Juffer Auslese Riesling
Mosel, Germany
I have only three bottles; I opened this with great trepidation, thinking the odds were high it would be shut down. Nope. This is open for business and incredibly intense.
I had this bottling once before. The 1992 vintage in 2010. Neither I nor the retailer had ever heard of the estate. It was ultimately the best wine I had ever tasted, and it remains my benchmark for fine wine today. I have thought about that bottle every day since. While this bottle didn’t achieve the same heights, I travelled back in time with the first sip. It has the same full throttle intensity with paradoxical elegance. It posses the same weightless density, the same salty mineral depth, the same electricity on the finish, the same silkiness, the same well-mannered explosiveness, and the same ability to furlough me from my perpetual stoicism. This is, of course, a young wine and has a lot of baby fat - delicious, apricot flavored adiposity - and needs time for the sugar to integrate. (The 1992 tasted completely dry. No idea if this dries out to the same extent). While this will certainly evolve and improve for some time, I not only have no regrets about trying this early, I adore this youthfully exuberant phase. I’ll probably open another soon to enjoy with duck. @Lyle Fass
I have only three bottles; I opened this with great trepidation, thinking the odds were high it would be shut down. Nope. This is open for business and incredibly intense.
I had this bottling once before. The 1992 vintage in 2010. Neither I nor the retailer had ever heard of the estate. It was ultimately the best wine I had ever tasted, and it remains my benchmark for fine wine today. I have thought about that bottle every day since. While this bottle didn’t achieve the same heights, I travelled back in time with the first sip. It has the same full throttle intensity with paradoxical elegance. It posses the same weightless density, the same salty mineral depth, the same electricity on the finish, the same silkiness, the same well-mannered explosiveness, and the same ability to furlough me from my perpetual stoicism. This is, of course, a young wine and has a lot of baby fat - delicious, apricot flavored adiposity - and needs time for the sugar to integrate. (The 1992 tasted completely dry. No idea if this dries out to the same extent). While this will certainly evolve and improve for some time, I not only have no regrets about trying this early, I adore this youthfully exuberant phase. I’ll probably open another soon to enjoy with duck. @Lyle Fass