April 1, 2015 | News | Wines of the Month | Mature Riesling | Auctions
We highlight this month the best Spätlese from our extensive “10 Years After” retrospective of the 2005 vintage. Is it surprising that it comes from the Egon Müller Estate? Not really. Read the story.
The 2005 vintage proved a mixed blessing for Weingut Egon Müller. It produced some of its best wines ever but wide-spread botrytis basically left the Estate with hardly any fruit at all, as Egon Müller explained to us back then: “The dry weather in October and the perfect noble rot led us to make scores of selections ... While I am extremely satisfied with the resulting quality, I can’t say the same about quantity as my yields did not exceed 15 hl/ha”.
The auction Spätlese proved already stunning young and it delivered handsomely on the goods in our extensive 2005 Riesling retrospective. We have tasted thousands of Spätlese over the years. Yet rarely have we found this level of perfection, with a mind-boggling balance between freshness, intensity, length and pure drinking fun. There is botrytis, but the whole thing remains stunningly playful!
This Spätlese is a worthy successor of the Estate’s 1999er Scharzhofberger Spätlese (Auction), another stunning wine, even if stylistically completely different.
The extensive 2005 Riesling Retrospective was published in Mosel Fine Wines Issue No 27 (Mar 2015). This Issue is only available to subscribers. Not yet a subscriber? You can become one, free of charge, by simply registering yourself here below.
2005er
Egon Müller
Scharzhofberger Riesling Spätlese (Auction)
05 06
100
This youthful animal delivers a hugely complex nose of menthol, mango, apricot tree blossom and herbs which is still wrapped in some yeasty flavors. The intensity, lightness and perfect freshness of the aromatics on the palate are simply staggering. There is still far too much sweetness at play at this stage, but the complexity leaves one speechless and at a loss for words. This is simply that good! 2025-2055
© Text by Mosel Fine Wines "The Independent Review of Mosel Riesling ... and beyond!"
Disclaimer: Mosel Fine Wines is an independent publication and has no commercial relationship with any Estate, association or organization featured in this article.