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I usually bury the lead in the vintage report, so this time I’ll make with the blab-o-rama: 2007 is a fantastically consistent vintage of very high quality, standing somewhere between 2002 and 2001, and more homogenous than either. It is even more homogenous than 2005, which was supernally great where it was great but which was merely very good in certain regions. 2007 is also a wonderfully pleasing vintage; its wines are delicious and amenable at the same time they’re rich, detailed and stupidly long.
The basic story of the growing season repeats cross-regionally. A very early bud-break was followed by the earliest flowering in history—more than a month ahead of schedule—causing most growers to cancel their usual late-summer vacations for fear they’d be picking before September 1st. But the eventual summer surprised them all. “It was what we used to consider a typical German summer,” one of them told me. “Cool, cloudy, plenty of rain, only a few sunny days. . . .” Another grower who’d just bought a swimming pool lamented ruefully “I didn’t enter it a single time.” Harvest-times kept being pushed back, and back, and back, as growers waited for acids to drop. In many cases they had sugar-ripeness but were still unfinished physiologically. This was a relief to hear, in fact, as many of Europe’s recent vintages have, to my taste, been compromised by the worship of physio-at-all-costs, which sometimes results in ponderous over-endowed wines that ain’t no fun to drink. But Germany in 2007 reminded me why we cared about the inner ripeness in the first place.
Picking was blissfully long and deliberate, in almost entirely good autumn weather. A couple brief rainy periods caused some Pfalz growers to panic and pick too soon, for fear of enduring another onslaught of rot, a la 2006, but most were resolute.
The wet summer created markedly high extracts by which the sometimes-pointed acids were buffered. Still, 2007 can show a little last kick of acidity in its finish, as some ‘02s did too. It has the silvery textures of that vintage but also the spicy profundity of 2001; it’s also a fruit-driven vintage, along lines of the lovely 1997—but even better. Back to those extracts though, for this is perhaps the defining story of 2007. It’s said you need 100 days between the end of flowering and the start of picking to make good German Riesling. In 2007 you had at least 120 to 130 days, and some growers showed me wines with 150 days hang-time; the results were riveting.
Yet even here one encounters shades of opinion. More than a few growers told me they picked when the grapes were ripe, though the weather was fine and they could easily have waited. One grower told me that the vine sometimes takes back ripeness, extract and thus even flavor if you wait too long to pick. Something new to think about. . . .
2007 usually enters the palate fruity and then gives way to a riptide of minerality and acidity. I wrote “The wines enter as liquids and leave as solids,” and this nails it. The finishes of these wines is scarcely believable; you think something must be wrong in your mouth for the wines to cling so, and “finish” in these wines is the furthest thing from metaphor: it’s a tactile feeling the wine is not only still there, it continues to grow and deepen.
As is often the case in vintages with “important” acidity, the mouth-texture of these wines is fantastically slippery and juicy. It sometimes seems we forget to notice the actual physical feeling of a wine in the mouth since we’re so busy working to isolate and identify flavors, but these 2007s will bring you home to how your mouth can dance.
Fruit runs malic, but ripe-malic. Not Granny Smith apples, but Cox-Orange Pippins, and many wines offer a feast of pears along with a little toothsome nip of quince. I barely recall a wine I felt was deficient in fruit qua fruit, and if I focus on 2007’s acids it not because they determine these wines: Far from it. They inform many 2007s, but to the extent I saw analyses I was almost bemused. Some wines have more acidity than they display, and others (Mosels especially) display more than they actually have. 2007 is also a vintage with a disconnect between acidity and pH, at least sensorially. At Merkelbach I saw a vintage uncannily like 2001, cracking line-drive wines of almost iridescent brilliance, the kind of Ur-Mosel they do at their very best, but the wines were in fact on the low side viz acids and the high side viz pH—so 2007 is at times a lesson in the difference between palate and analysis.
Eiswein was possible if you waited until just before Christmas, but many growers said “We had such a long harvest that when it was finally over we felt done with it, and we decided not to leave anything for Eiswein.” Still, you’ll see a few, and they’re typical and wonderful. There’s also no end of BA-TBA (Catoir made a BA and god-help-me seven TBAs, . . .) but there’s no plethora of Auslese as was the case last year. Drinkers yearning for a return to the “typical” Kabinett will be relieved by 2007, though standards have changed and what we now taste as “typical” would have been unthinkable ten years ago. Bear this in mind when you first confront the Dollar-disaster prices for 2007s. That “Kabinett” you’re being asked to pay so “much” for contains juice you’d have cherished in a Spätlese in the ‘90s and an Auslese in the ‘80s.
2007 offered very few disappointments. It’s a reliable year. It is huge fun to taste! Even its dry wines are—mostly—huge fun to taste. You know, there’s ‘sweet’-dry and then there’s ‘sour’-dry, and most of the dry ‘07s seem to have been born in balance. They’re like Gerber babies, plump and dimpled and smiling. One grower we saw near the end showed me the kinds of gnarly Trockens I’d come to loathe and I was actually relieved I hadn’t been somehow seduced-at-last by Trocken; the ‘07s were really that good.
REGION-BY-REGION is hardly necessary in this vintage. There was no storm-that-just-missed-us nor any occluded front where the wines on the north side were clean and fine but those on the south side were difficult. Interestingly, 2007 marks the first vintage since . . . what, 2000? . . . that the Mosel and Nahe haven’t been dramatically the best regions, fine though they surely are! Indeed I couldn’t say Mosel in total is any better than Rheinhessen was in 2007, and I’d be tempted to say my humble little paysannes in RH had maybe the even-better year.
There’s also enough wine. At last. This has had a moderating effect on what would have been draconian price increases, based on the many short crops the last five years, and on us poor Dollar beggars imploring our growers to defer increasing prices year after year until the poor grower finally has to burst out. In fact most of his fixed expenses (especially for bottles) have shot up the past two years, and they’re hurting from the prices they’re giving us. Thank our new best friends in China-India-Norway-Sweden, who can pay the asking price and who are in effect subsidizing us dirt-poor Yanks.
Sybarites with tastes similar to mine will be delighted to hear of the many excellent Scheurebe and Muscat from 2007.
HIGHLIGHTS AND SUPERLATIVES
My list of hors classe is squirming to grow. Certain growers have emeritus status, and I eliminate them from my best-ofs because if they were there they’d steal the whole show. Dönnhoff obviously. But if Catoir has another vintage like 2007 they’ll have to climb on board also, because this is not only a head-shakingly magnificent collection, it’s a real so-there! To anyone who doubted they’d be able to pull it off in the Post-Schwarz era. More on this when I get into their text.
The Winery Of The Vintage is . . . with a big ta-da! . . . our friends at Selbach-Oster. I thought about this one, because they got the hosanna two years ago, and I’d like to spread it around. But when I looked back on everything I tasted I could draw no other conclusion. Again with Selbach it has to do with breadth. It’s not that their wines are necessarily “better” than, say, Schaefer’s, but that there are so many masterpieces and the quality is so remarkable across the board—the very large board.
Other Outstanding Collections . . . that is, sustained superlative performance over the entire vintage, consist of the following:
- Wagner-Stempel (When is this world-class grower gonna get the attention he deserves?)
- Müller-Catoir (No sensible person can deny them their rightful position as best in the Pfalz any longer!)
Growers For Whom 2007 Is Their Best-ever Vintage:
Comeback Kids Of The Year . . . growers whose 2007s are markedly superior to the prevailing level of the last few years:
THE WINE OF THE VINTAGE IS:
- Selbach-Oster Zeltinger Schlossberg Riesling Auslese Rotlay
Runners-up include:
- Hexamer Meddersheimer Rheingrafenberg Riesling Spätlese***
- Spreitzer Winkeler Jesuitengarten Riesling Spätlese
- Karlsmühle Kaseler Nieschen Riesling Spätlese
- Selbach-Oster Zeltinger Schlossberg Riesling Spätlese*
THE AUSLESE OF THE VINTAGE IS:
- Müller-Catoir Haardter Herzog Rieslaner Auslese
THE SCHEUREBE OF THE VINTAGE IS:
- Müller-Catoir Haardter Herzog Scheurebe Auslese
THE BIGGEST SURPRISES OF THE VINTAGE ARE:
- Strub Grüner Veltliner (a sheer delight of typicity and vitality, And a quantum-leap ahead of any previous vintage.)
- Bernhard Frei-Laubersheimer Rheingrafenberg Riesling Kabinett Feinherb (which also gets the award for the longest name . . . but this is one of those who-knew-they-had-it-in-them wines, a new level of finesse and complexity from this estate.)
- Schneider Niederhäuser Hermannshöhle Riesling Spätlese (likely to be the best wine they have ever made, certainly in the modern era, and a great Nahe Riesling.)
- Leitz Dragonstone (yes! Back to the drier style and more filigree delineation that made this wine when it was first introduced.)
THE GREATEST CORE-LIST WINES ARE:
- Gysler Silvaner Halbtrocken LITER
- Spreitzer Oestricher Lenchen Riesling Kabinett
- Selbach-Oster Zeltinger Sonnenuhr Riesling Kabinett
- Minges Burrweiler Schlossgarten Riesling Spätlese (replaced Gleisweiler Hölle)
THE GREATEST DRY WINE IS:
- Wagner-Stempel Heerkretz Grosses Gewächs
THE TWO GREATEST VALUES ARE:
- Schneider Riesling Kabinett LITER
- Minges Riesling Kabinett LITER
SHORT-LIST FOR ROCK HEADS:
- Wagner-Stempel Sauvignon Blanc
- Wagner-Stempel Riesling “Vom Porphyr”
- Schlossgut Diel Burgberg Grosses Gewächs
- Leitz Berg Kaisersteinfels Riesling Alte Reben
- Schaefer Graacher Domprobst Riesling Spätlese #12
SHORT LIST FOR FRUIT HOUNDS:
- Strub Niersteiner Oelberg Riesling Spätlese
- Kerpen Wehlener Sonnenuhr Riesling Spätlese
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