Two Bottles Kalkofen
We are drinking two wines out of the Deidesheim Kalkofen vineyard: One from the von Winning Winery and one from the Mehling Winery, both harvested in 2016.
Two Rieslings from a top site, made by different winegrowers in the same year, that is always interesting. This time we are in the Palatinate, more precisely in Deidesheim and even more precisely in the Deidesheim Kalkofen vineyard. We will drink a Grosses Gewächs from the von Winning Winery and from the Mehling Winery also a Riesling from the top of their collection. The VDP wine is about twice as expensive as its counterpart, which of course doesn’t say anything about the quality, but in the back of your mind you somehow already make assumptions. Both wines are from the year 2016.
Let’s start with the Riesling from von Winning: Creamy nose, minerality, a bit smelly and you immediately notice the wood in which almost all wines are matured at the winery. However, the wood is in no way unpleasant or too much in the spotlight. In the mouth we have a lot of spice and structure, tight acidity that tickles on the tongue, juicy, bright and clear with a good pull on the palate. This makes drinking this wine a real pleasure. With air the nose becomes more yellow, ripe mirabelle plums join then ose and the taste becomes more mineral. It lasts for a very long time, and it could certainly do that in the cellar too. At the same time it is already very accessible and a pleasure to drink.
On the second day, the wood is less noticeable, but the minerality becomes more prominent. Still a very clear wine with very fresh acidity and a great length. A lot of tension in the mouth and so juicy that it is really difficult to taste the wine for two days and not to empty it completely on the first day. Very nice!
The Kalkofen of Mehling is much more fruity in the nose, there is so much honeydew melon, you want to unwrap some Serrano ham and eat it alongside of the wine. It’s softer in the nose, in the mouth there is also a lot of fruit, altogether much more fruity without becoming unpleasant, yellow, exotic, with honey, also long lasting but very different in the mouthfeel compared to the von Winning. Very dense in the aroma, the acidity less tight but quite present, has a creaminess to it, and feels nicely round and balanced.
After a night in the fridge there is more melon in the nose, the wine is still very full in the mouth and has got a nice spiciness, which is not inferior to the other wine in length and there is always the ripe fruit lingering around the corner.
These are really two very different wines, but I really like both of them. It’s nice that there is still some of the Mehling in the cellar, but unfortunately no more von Winning. A pity. What’s better here is really only a matter of taste, as it is so often. In direct comparison, the von Winning has more tension and complexity in the mouth, more pull thanks to the firmer acidity and certainly also the wood, but in no way does this mean that I wouldn’t prefer to have the Mehling in my glass on many evenings. It’s nice to have options!