Nobody's fault but mine

I'll disparage the 99s - I've always found them flabby. The 98s, OTOH, are beautiful. I think all of the 96s that came in were, uh, problematic (cooked?). And I had a 93 brucke spatlese last week that was terrific and showed no petrol (at least compared to 01 CFE that followed).
 
originally posted by maureen:
I'll disparage the 99s - I've always found them flabby. The 98s, OTOH, are beautiful. I think all of the 96s that came in were, uh, problematic (cooked?).
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I've only had a few '96s from Donnhoff (all from good sources) and not one was drinkable - they were either very weird and slightly oxidative, or showing signs of heat damage.

I've heard lots of good things about Donnhoffs '98s, but out of several bottles I've had a grand total of one bottle that wasn't plagued by a bad cork or storage.

BTW, a bottle of '99 Brucke Spatlese recently was quite lovely - rich, but certainly not flabby and really nicely balanced.
 
I can certainly echo the comments on the '96s. I have not had more than 1 bottle I enjoyed. The acids are weird, and the wines seem to have been abused by something. Remember that these wines were prior to Terry moving over to Skurnik.

I like the '99s, but don't take them too seriously. The '98s are lovely.
 
originally posted by Brad Kane:
originally posted by maureen:
I'll disparage the 99s - I've always found them flabby.
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Yep. That was always the knock on that vintage as a whole, let alone on the Donnhoff.
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Was '99 a flabby vintage for just the Nahe or does that include the Middle Mosel?
 
originally posted by Yule Kim:
originally posted by Brad Kane:
originally posted by maureen:
I'll disparage the 99s - I've always found them flabby.
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Yep. That was always the knock on that vintage as a whole, let alone on the Donnhoff.
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Was '99 a flabby vintage for just the Nahe or does that include the Middle Mosel?
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'99 was very soft across the range. The wines are nice enough, but don't hold a candle to some other vintage contemporaries (e.g. '98, '01 and even '97 which is turning out quite nicely after being initially labeled as too soft).
 
wow. reading the various comments above makes me begin to understand the monkey's perspective far better.

there were some 30 odd cases of pre-2000 donnhoff in the fatcave when i flew it from the frozen north out to the us. i drink and report on those. it would appear that the monkey and i are drinking very different wines.

when i mention the 99% figure, i meant that as far as i can tell, shipping by sea has a permanent affect on the wine. for most purposes, i may as well have written 100%. side by side comparisons between bottles i've flown out and bottles that have been carefully shipped here have shown a consistent pattern of difference that is far from subtle. (it also isn't barometrics, since the opinion is based on side by side comparisons.) i was also going to write, "it is worst in syrah," but then i realized that it's just that my vague dislike for rhone wines has made me more willing to sacrifice them for these kinds of experiments (and there have been a lot of these, because i can never quite get over how large the differences are).

i was also going to write "it's worse in reds," but then i pondered all this.

fwiw, this doesn't mean that i advocate flying out all wine. the world has enough problems. life is full of trade offs, and that's how i've viewed the problem of blurry wine these past few years. most of the time, absent a comparison, the blurriness is not something that bothers or even occurs to me.

it isn't all bad either -- my experience is that the 99 donnhoffs have firmed up in the past couple of years. that firming happened earlier in the blurry/chunky bottles i bought here. which meant that the "worse" bottles were actually "better" to drink. go figure.

thanks to all for the helpful data, btw.

fb.
 
uh - to add. my comment on shipping is not meant to contradict yixin's remarks about humidity etc.

i agree that taste (and tastes) are dramatically affected by humidity etc.

fb.
 
originally posted by .sasha:
fb, thanks for checking up on hh for me.
owe you one.
but i guess i need to finish up those 97s first ?
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i dunno. i'm not wild about the style of the 97s, espec for current drinking (though i admit was a total slut for the kabs when they first came out).

i'd be more inclined to leave them a while at the moment -- they may yet surprise us.

fb.
 
originally posted by David M. Bueker:
I can certainly echo the comments on the '96s. I have not had more than 1 bottle I enjoyed. The acids are weird, and the wines seem to have been abused by something. Remember that these wines were prior to Terry moving over to Skurnik.

I like the '99s, but don't take them too seriously. The '98s are lovely.
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the 96s were weird. i remember drinking an o-l kab with connell years ago, and at the time it was notably marked with botrytis. it was also very weird. the hh spaet was less bizarre, but also odd.

my last few o-l kabs otoh were great (and made me regret the indecent amount of this wine i gave away because i'd lost hope for it).

96 is an odd year in general. but reinhold haart hit it out of the park. if you ever come across a bottle, the piesporter goldtrpfchen kab approaches perfection.

fb.
 
originally posted by fatboy:

96 is an odd year in general. but reinhold haart hit it out of the park. if you ever come across a bottle, the piesporter goldtrpfchen kab approaches perfection.

fb.
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Theo Haart poured the '96 PG Kabinett for us when we visited several years ago. It was indeed delicious, but unfortunately not for sale at the time.
 
i drank my last this summer. i wish i had more. it's an immortal wine that got better every time i had it. theo haart is a genius.

fb.
 
originally posted by fatboy:(though i admit was a total slut for the kabs when they first came out).
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I think .sasha and I set a land speed record for the rapid consumption of a bottle wine with the '97 Grunhauser- Kabinett Abtsberg on release. I know I've never consumed a bottle faster than that one.

Btw, had my last bottle of '96 Muller-Catoir- Riesling Eiswein, Mussbacher Eselshaut the other night and it was deliciously wicked.
 
99 was decent in the Saar from the right producers, altho 97 better. Loosen did very well in 96 as the high acid worked well with his densely fruited style. The petrol bit being a mark of intermediate age makes sense to me as that's how I would characterize 01 CFE.
 
originally posted by maureen:
The petrol bit being a mark of intermediate age makes sense to me as that's how I would characterize 01 CFE.
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While I have gotten a little petrol out of some bottles of '01 CFE, a bottle I had two nights ago showed none and was quite simply the best bottle of it I've had to date. Fresh, more fruit than I've had in any previous bottle and just altogether showy.
 
I ask about '99 because I managed to get some '99 JJ Prum WS Spatlese for a song a while back. I was curious as to why they were so inexpensive. Anyone had any recently...I was thinking of leaving them be for a while but was wondering whether they were approachable.
 
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