Kiedrich Grafenberg, Riesling, Grosses Gewächs, 2015
Pure piquant slate meets Thai basil, fabulous layering and precision, fine lemons and sheets of minerality appearing on a very sophisticated and finely textured palate. Long and seamless, a very gentle calm display of power and complexity, growing with air to reveal notes of raspberry and plum skin amongst the millefeuill of minerality. The class of the great Gräfenberg GG is very clearly on display here.
critic reviews
Musky floral perfume of peony and narcissus mingles with scents of kumquat, grapefruit, papaya and ripe pear. The satiny palate conveys similarly decadent inner-mouth perfume and tropically ripe fruit, with the zest and piquancy of citrus peel rendered forcefully by the wine’s 13 percent alcohol. More aggressive phenolics vis-à-vis this wine’s Klosterberg and Turmberg counterparts are typical for Weil’s Gräfenberg Grosses Gewächs, but are here partly assuaged by a glossy palate feel. And while this wine’s formidably sustained finish incorporates a major dose of mineral salts as well as alkali and crushed stone, the effect is more austere and marginally less mouthwatering than that conveyed by either the corresponding Turmberg or this vintage’s overachieving village-level Kiedricher. Not for the first time, I ask myself whether Weil’s Grosses Gewächs unnecessarily sacrifices charm in the interest of seriousness. I am hoping for an opportunity to compare several years old Gräfenberg and Turmberg in parallel.