Is anyone else following this?

originally posted by kirk wallace:
Is anyone else following this?http://www.larscarlberg.com/too-much-heat-not-enough-light-the-pigott-fracas/
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I am now. And I can't imagine why anyone would want do their "best to stay quiet." The whole point of the board is to engage in lively debate.

In any case, I agree with Terry and the intention of his term "invasive species"—which though it may be an imprecise metaphor—is crystal clear (at least it is to me). David Schildknecht gets it right when in discussing the definition of "invasive species" says, "the problem is that they come to dominate an ecosystem and threaten the existence of other long-standing lovely and/or useful resident species." That, in a word (or several) is the problem with German riesling Trocken wines.

There were, particularly in the past, too many shrill Trocken wines. The situation has changed, but just try to order a wine with residual sugar in a German restaurant. There might be one or two on the list, along with several hundred Trocken wines.

The hegemony of dry riesling is a problem. Why can't we enjoy myriad styles? This is Terry's point, with which I agree.

Stuart Pigott's ludicrous assertion that Terry is insulting the German People is just one of the many things he doesn't get.
 
I know Terry a bit, and am not shocked to find him slightly intemperate. I don't know Stuart at all, but he seems determined to misunderstand Terry. Is that his M.O.?

The fire of true disagreement on display there is smaller than all the smoke might suggest. David makes his usual thorough good sense.
 
Terry's historic distaste for dry wines is well-known and particularly notorious in Germany, but his position seems to be evolving. I'm not sure if he's personally become a bigger fan of them due to stylistic and climate changes or if he is merely lessening his resistance to the category due to continued pressure from both the growers and his customers. Whereas before his position could probably have been paraphrased as "Dry Rieslings are austere, unpleasant and not as good as the sweeter styles," now he seems to be taking the much more sensible (and Schildknechtian) position that there should be room for all styles and growers are being silly to turn their backs on something they do so well. Stuart seems to be arguing against the former Theise position and since he's not finding the statements he's seeking to rebut in the text, he seems to be focusing on Terry's language and finding "gotcha" points.

At least that's what I think is going on. Stuart is clearly a smart guy and I can't think of any other explanation as to why he repeatedly insists that Terry has deeply insulted the German national character.
 
Terry Thiese should ban himself from using biological metaphors. I remember on the Parker board him saying that the genes of a wine are its terroir, thus leading to a laborious explanation to him of what genes and environments are. Of course, he just meant that terroir is, for him, the essence of what a wine is, but the metaphor was still almost exactly wrong. Same thing with "invasive species" here. As everybody notes, he really means to let a thousand flowers bloom (though if he said that, we all know where it would lead) and so poor David has to go over the metaphor and explicate. On the merits of the case, only John Ritchie's explanation above makes sense of Stuart Piggot's position at this point.
 
David and I seem to be talking to different people in Germany. I returned last week from a 16-day tasting trip there and several producers commented on how their German customers are beginning to discover Kabinett.

Additionally, far from being enthusiastic for high alcohol vintages, several producers commented with relief/joy on the more moderate alcohols in the 2012s.

Moreover, as in the past several years, I was shown no lack of feinherb, halbtrocken, and plain QbA wines with 10-30 g r.s. If importers and their customers want them, they're out there; if importers and their customers don't want them, that's no reason to criticize the producers.

Although trockens used to be harsh back in the early 1990s, producers some time ago learned to leave a bit more r.s. in the wines to smooth them out. I saw very few wines with 2 g r.s. (and most of those that I did see worked, at least for my palate); most trockens were in the range of 6-8 g.
 
originally posted by Jonathan Loesberg:
Terry Thiese should ban himself from using biological metaphors. I remember on the Parker board him saying that the genes of a wine are its terroir, thus leading to a laborious explanation to him of what genes and environments are. Of course, he just meant that terroir is, for him, the essence of what a wine is, but the metaphor was still almost exactly wrong. Same thing with "invasive species" here. As everybody notes, he really means to let a thousand flowers bloom (though if he said that, we all know where it would lead) and so poor David has to go over the metaphor and explicate. On the merits of the case, only John Ritchie's explanation above makes sense of Stuart Piggot's position at this point.
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How Thiese became so celebrated for his rambling, inchoate writing is beyond me.
 
originally posted by Claude Kolm:

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Although trockens used to be harsh back in the early 1990s, producers some time ago learned to leave a bit more r.s. in the wines to smooth them out. I saw very few wines with 2 g r.s. (and most of those that I did see worked, at least for my palate); most trockens were in the range of 6-8 g.
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I'm curious now. Do you know what the rs usually was on the wonderful HGS Muller Catoir Halbtrockens? I often thought they were among his best wines.
 
originally posted by Jay Miller:
originally posted by Claude Kolm:

...
Although trockens used to be harsh back in the early 1990s, producers some time ago learned to leave a bit more r.s. in the wines to smooth them out. I saw very few wines with 2 g r.s. (and most of those that I did see worked, at least for my palate); most trockens were in the range of 6-8 g.
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I'm curious now. Do you know what the rs usually was on the wonderful HGS Muller Catoir Halbtrockens? I often thought they were among his best wines.
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Sorry, I don't know that, Jay. I think as a legal matter, they had to be 10-20 g, but I wouldn't bet my life on that -- things seem to be constantly changing in a largely successful "effort" to cause maximum consumer confusion. Producers should have a separate back label that just explains how their own personal labelling system works -- it has totally broken down in Germany.
 
I am waiting for Lyle to jump into the fray.

Nice fact checking by the paper of record. They got Karthäuserhof's importer wrong. They should pay more attention to twitter.
 
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