Once again, tasting these (especially the whites) I was impaled on the sharp edge of an issue I can’t seem to escape, and that is the experience of tasting in contrast to that of drinking. These seem to be parallel tracks, close to each other but never touching. The tasting milieu, its ecosystem if you will, is a sealed chamber with rules and protocols that do not necessarily apply in the real world. The judgments rendered by the ”taster,” certainly including myself, are solid only in the situation in which they were made. They have value, sometimes great value, but their limits need to be understood. Since you’ve heard me say this before – too many times before – I’m finished laboring the point. And when it arises in the future, as it absolutely will, I’ll just toss in a phrase of some sort, and we can abstain from all the verbiage.
The ’23 whites can be like sitting in a room with a guy jiggling his leg continually until soon you start to feel tense yourself. The guy is interesting, even fascinating, but man that leg just won’t stop. The lucid repose of the less fascinating ’22 is a balm, and you can get your heart rate back down to its normal resting state.
Yet here we are, with a lineup from one the true great growers in Germany – Gunter Künstler. And what have we here?
For an estate prominently (and correctly) identified with stellar Riesling, they sure send me a lot of non-Riesling wines to sample. This case contained three reds, a Rosé, a Sauvignon Blanc and an Alvarinho, and oh, a few Rieslings. Perhaps I can remedy this later in the year, because Gunter Künstler’s Rieslings are not to be missed. I’ll argue – and many will agree – that no one in the Rheingau makes better dry Rieslings than these.
And so, let's start with a survey of some of the reds...
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