Luxurious World Beater Wittmann

We all want to taste and enjoy the best wines in the world, and often too.  But it doesn’t quite happen like that.  Most of them are just too expensive, and most are rare and difficult to source.  Thank goodness and our lucky stars that we’ve had our fair share of some of the world’s great wines; not as many as many other people, but enough to know.  Then there’s the subjective and stylistic element.  Sure the wine is superb, but it might not suit our taste, and we simply just don’t like drinking it.

Not so the 2013 Wittmann Westhofen Kirchspiel GG Riesling Trocken.  It had the big tick from the Queen of Wine, Jancis Robinson herself, with a hefty 19.0/20.  We’ve enjoyed Wittmann wines many times in the past, from some of the more ‘lowly’, and also some of the best tiered in what they are trying to show – dry Riesling from top sites.  But this wine was utterly spectacular from first sniff and first sip.  It was a treat for SWMBO and the I-Spy Man.  We need to treat ourselves every once in a while, and this was it.  Gorgeously ripe and decadent with layers of exotic fruits and flowers, blooming to show layers and detail.  On the palate dry, but simultaneously rich.  Incredible weight and mouthfilling presence, but still with a lightness of foot and a degree of elegance and finesse.  The acidity behind the richness to keep it poised.  And so smooth, flowing and unctuous.  Did it show the terroir with the site’s limestone influence?  It was difficult to say, as we had no other wine to compare with, and my memory wasn’t locked in to compare with what I’d tasted previously.  In the final analysis, it didn’t matter to analyse it.  We just luxuriated ourselves with it.  A truly world-class wine.