the winegetter

You know it. I love old(er) rieslings. So, you can imagine how excited I was when Salil Benegal over at Terroirist posted about a tasting of 1997 Mosel rieslings he attended recently. I writes convincingly about the vintage and the experience. I have tried only one 1997 I can remember and I still have a bottle or two of that one.

Here is some of the article that I could easily relate to (but probably not express like that…):

“One of the most striking differences between German Riesling on release and several years later is the sense of harmony that seems to develop. The floral or mineral expressions that they show on release aren’t as vivid several years later, but rather they converge with the fruit and the nuances of development into a seamless whole that’s greater than the sum of all parts in the best examples. While most of the top young examples from 2011 and 2010 I’d tasted recently were wines that dazzled with their youthful exuberance and the interplay between sweetness and acidity, and fruit and mineral flavours, the 1997s at this lineup were thrilling for very different reasons – they were calmer, more understated and delicate, and showing a remarkable range of flavours that kept unravelling with time and air.”

Enjoy your Sunday! I sure hope there is something nice in your glass…

http://terroirist.com/?p=11760

I think I am in the process of creating a new regular feature: the Sunday read. I like to sit back on Sunday mornings with a cup of homemade milk coffee (beans ground in my peugeot hand grinder, coffee made in my stove top espresso maker that I have had for ages), read a magazine or browse online. I like when I find pieces that are interesting but not overwhelming, broadening my horizon.

The folks over at Snooth ran a piece by Nancy Hawks Miller (owner of the blog The Tasting Group) a couple of days ago that played well on what I posted last Sunday: how hard it can be to discern smells in wine. This piece goes a bit further, explaining key components and how to find them in your nose and on your palate. She names acid, tannin, alcohol, sugar and body. That makes initial sense to me. The way she describes these and how we can detect how they work was illuminating to me, so I thought I’d share.

One sentence rung especially true: Fruit in a wine can be mistaken for sweetness, even though there is hardly any sugar in there. It is just our brain making that unconscious connection.

Happy Sunday reading. Hope you all are having a good day.

http://www.snooth.com/articles/five-key-wine-components-and-how-to-detect-them/