In the past two weeks I've tasted through most of my selections four times.

The biggest tasting was the first one, June 15th in New York. Daunting. I opted to taste any and all wines I'd hesitated over (or actively disliked) in Europe, hoping to visit these with a fresh palate. Friends had returned from Germany reporting the improvement of the `03s since I saw them in March. Like anyone who sticks his neck out rendering opinions (whether merchants or writers), I tend to err on the side of caution. In the rare instances I see I've overrated a wine it really deflates me. I want to be reliable. More often, to my great relief, I've underrated a wine, and then I only owe apologies to the grower.

2003 continues to surprise. How did such an ostensibly loose-stitched, low-acid vintage need so long to really show its cards? I can't say. But I can tell you which wines turn out to be MUCH better than I thought them to be, and (ulp... ) published opinions on them which I now regret.

WITTMANN: this one's front & center. Though I visited as late as I could, these wines seem to have been stormy and truculent, but whatever funk they were in then, they're sure singing now. Both of the dry wines (which I at least had the wits to offer though not to "select") are lovely, and I endorse them fully. Ditto the Morstein Spätlese. Wittmann, it turns out, rocks.

DARTING: again, their success in 2003 is counterintuitive, as they usually do best in high-acid years, but the `03s have authority and depth.

LEITZ: having already praised his `03s to the skies, I ruefully conclude I failed to praise them enough. Every wine is better now than it was in late March.

KARLSMUHLE: many wines were unready, but sheeeee-it, they're ready now, and it's proving to be a rapturously pretty vintage at this estate.

VAN VOLXEM: the couple of `03s ready to show were marvelous, more glossy and well-knit than they seemed in March.

I have to emphasize I deliberately sought out those wines I'd been skeptical of, and tasted them first, while the room was quiet and my palate was fresh. And I repeated this protocol at each of the four tastings I attended personally.

Just on a whim I power-tasted through all the Germans in NY and all the Austrians in Chicago. It taught me a lot. It taught me what a basic falsification the whole thing is. Don't get me wrong; there's no better way to give y'all access to enough wine to get a sense of the vintage, but these tastings are laws unto themselves. You almost need to have an understudy-palate to manage them.

I'll just come out and say it: How wines taste on tables with 200 other wines is NOT how the wines actually really taste; it's merely how they taste on tables with 200 other wines. Fine distinctions flatten out. The subtle is ruined. After 40-50 wines sugar retreats and acid advances. The papillae on your tongue are desensitized. And all of this is happening along with noises and bodies and myriad distractions and iffy serving temps and yes, I know we're all "professionals", but if we're truly professional then I believe we have to allow for the inherent distortion of such tastings. And, <sigh>, I'll see you at the next one.

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