LOEWEN – THE 2023s

I missed receiving the excellent Pinot Blanc, assuming the “other” Kabinett was sent in its place.

To set the stage, a careful reader will have gleaned that I have mixed feelings about this vintage. When it’s good it is really good, and when it isn’t good it tends to suffer from a rasping sharpness on the finish, based (I am told) not on acidity but on low pH values. This generality doesn’t account for the exceptions, of which there are many, but no generality is more than generally true. I tell you this because Loewen is an estate that should ace the vintage, based on their track record and the “type” of wine they make. Thus, having no idea what awaits me, I am hopeful.

I’ll taste over two days, six at a time. Today will be four of the dry wines and the two Kabis. Tomorrow the other three dry wines (and the “1896” which tends to be feinherb) and the Spät and Auslese. In my dotage I find if I taste too many sweet wines at a time I start to misjudge them. No one wants that.

Finally, this is the first year of the last three when I’m tasting before our crabapple tree blooms. This is obviously meaningless except to me. I thought about waiting but I was too eager to get to the wines. This of course will suppress my tendency to depict them in terms of blossoms and birds, which is probably just as well.