Familiarity

One of our favourite Mosel winegrowers is Clemens Busch, who from his holdings in the Pundericher Marienberg vineyard makes a stunning selection of wines that show off the differences between Grey, Red and Blue slate.  SWMBO and I tend to prefer the GG ‘Rothenpfad’ bottling for its richer and more exotic character.

But we are so focussed on these top-end wines that we often forget that Clemens Busch also makes a good number of the more ‘fruit-sweet’ pradikat wines. Our favourite of these is of course the ‘Gold Kap’ Spatlese, which really borders on Auslese in style.  However, the Punk Doctor had available some of the regular Kabinett – which we had not tried before.  So our order included a couple of bottles to see how they fared.

We had a lovely visit with the Grove Men, so that was an occasion to open the 2017 Clemens Busch Pundericher Marienberg Riesling Kabinett.  A lowly and deliciously accessible 7.5% alc., this had a nose that showed a bit too much sulphur – not in a bad way, but in a J.J. Prum way that you know it would blow off or integrate – in this case, a couple of hours would help.  But rich and sweetly luscious on the palate.  Lovely fruitiness with honey and slatey mineral flavours.  Subtle phenolic textures which really combined with the sugar to make it smooth and seamless, plus that piquant acidity.  Sure, the sulphur was there, but it was only a part of the wine.  We all drank it with a smile.  They say familiarity breeds contempt.  Not here.