Youthfully Firm

The 2014 vintage in Germany is yet another good one, say all the official press releases.  We all know how positive these reports ‘must’ be.  Some do mention the rainy period before harvest, and the more accurate reports say early varieties and those who waited for the grapes to fully ripen after the wet weather were successful.  Experience counts for loads, so Donnhoff in the Nahe could be expected to have smart results no matter what.  It’s ‘who’ that counts, as always.

After the previous post on the ‘harder’ nature of the 2014 Donnhoff Grauburgunder Trocken, we needed to remind ourselves of the Donnhoff wines as we’ve come to know them, as I feared that styles could change, especially with the embracing of dry German wine expression.  So it was a good excuse to open the 2014 Donnhoff Oberhauser Brucke Riesling Spatlese.  SWMBO was delighted, as we do love the ‘traditional’ pradikat wines made by Donnhoff.   With the wine served a little too cold, my first impression was “oh no, very firm!”  But as the wine warmed up, it unveiled much more of its personality.  Beautifullly aromatic floral, lime, stonefruit and honeysuckle flavours, growing in intensity and richness as the bottle went down.  It was painfully obvious this was opened 5 years or a decade too early.  Still tightly bound, and the potential array of flavours still locked up.  Yet this was delicious, even at this youthfully firm stage.  Texturally fine-grained and indeed soft.  Not hard.  The tightness, firmness and harder nature of the Grauburgunder and this Spatlese could be vintage related?  And/or youthful in nature.  We are still immensely respectful of this producer.