Fading Memories

It was our final night with The Knotters and we were joined by The Hutt Man.  We’d talked the talk and walked the walk, as well as sharing good times.  It was the last dinner and a couple of wines were broached to seal the occasion.

SWMBO has always enjoyed the wines of Weingut Paulinshof, and they delivered gentle character in archetype fashion.  While the wines aren’t necessarily the trendy and notable one of the Mosel, they are certainly worthy of attention.  We opened the 2007 Paulinshof Brauneberger Juffer Riesling Kabinett, and it was a lovely sipping wine.  A little more sugar than most Kabinetts of yore, and not quite as expressive of Brauneberg as it can be quite blackcurranty.  Just lovely building flavours of richness.  While it was our aperitif wine, we hung onto it for our dessert, and even then, it worked well.  In the end, it faded away.  And if I hadn’t of noted it here, it would probably faded into oblivion, as it wasn’t a show stopper.  And that would not be fair on it.

I have always loved the Wolf Blass style at the top level.  The ‘Black Label’ wine is exoticly spicy and sexy with its smoothness.  It always has showcased new oak, but I love it to this day.  It’s also always so consistent, and these will be my everlasting memories.  Our next contribution was the brand new 2008 Wolf Blass ‘Black Label’ Cabernet/Shiraz and Malbec, made from mainly Langhorne Creek fruit – Wolf’s grape playground.  This bottle far too youthful and marked by volatility on initial sips.  Rather disappointing we thought.  But slowly, slowly, over time and the meal, its glory began to emerge.  Ripe and sweet.  Lifted and spicy, seamless, but with a firm line and concentrated core.  Far too young, as I noted before.  It’ll need a decade before its exuberance will fade so that it fits into my memories of what the wine ‘should be’.