Two Bottles Köhler-Ruprecht
We are drinking two dry Spätlesen from the Kallstadter Saumagen from Köhler-Ruprecht from the years 2016 and 2017.
This feels a bit like the sequel to the three bottles of Saumagen from a few years ago. For the sake of completeness. But somehow it’s also about satisfying a driving curiosity as to how well the bottles have held up. Because one bottle of ‘15 Saumagen Spätlese, which we brought to one of the lively wine evenings in Karlsruhe, survived the Württemberg-Baden border crossing only moderately well. I claim it’s the border crossing’s fault, but in truth the cork probably just let in more oxygen than it should have. And once that happens, I carry it around in the back of my mind until I can convince myself that it was hopefully just a downward outlier. And for precisely this work of persuasion, this time we are opening two more bottles of Kallstadter Saumagen Spätlese from Köhler-Ruprecht. Vintages 2016 and 2017. The Kallstadter Saumagen, located west of Kallstadt, is probably not as closely associated with any other winery as it is with Köhler-Ruprecht. At least in my mind, the two are almost synonymous, even though other vintners of course press wines from the Saumagen, which, with its roughly 40 hectares depending on the source, provides enough area for it. Köhler-Ruprecht farms just over 12 hectares of vines, but not all of them are in the Saumagen. The winery offers dry Riesling across the Prädikate, and the Spätlese lies pretty much in the middle. At least, if you ignore that some versions also exist with an extra R.
2016 is quite shy at the beginning. Yellow fruit, a touch of maturity that I perhaps only smell because I expect there should be some maturity by now. There are some floral notes and a bit of stone. As is often the case, this doesn’t really prepare you for what comes next. Because the first sip blows you away. There is some real drive to it. It pulls the tongue up, the cheeks inward, and the saliva right along with it. It’s ultra juicy, with super high freshness that is only replaced by a bit of maturity at the very back of the tongue. I can’t quite put into words why it tastes mature, but very young Riesling never feels like this after swallowing. The structure, the texture in this form, that only comes with time in the bottle. But you don’t have that for long, because the next sip sweeps powerfully over it again. This is incredibly good. There’s citrus fruit, some white citrus pith, and it gets even juicier with every sip.
After the wine was already singing on the first evening, it doesn’t really surprise me how unchanged it goes into the second. The nose picks up exactly where it left off. Quiet, typical Riesling, but restrained. The creaminess you get now when drinking wasn’t there on the first evening. More buttermilk than butter, and bright light yellow instead of orange, but a bit more mature than on the first day. That doesn’t detract from the juiciness. Yuzu, lime, pineapple. This is so, so good right now, and although I’m spoiled by the 2016 vintage anyway, I’m surprised by how much I like it. This has to be one of the best matured Rieslings on this table so far. Although I don’t really want to say matured. Not so much because of those who would cry out that 2016 doesn’t deserve the attribute matured at all, but because it simply doesn’t taste matured in the slightest yet. I do stand by this: For the vast majority of wine drinkers on this planet, a nine-year-old white wine is not matured but old. That’s almost a decade, and I know enough people who wouldn’t touch it with a ten-foot pole. Educational work in such cases is not done by lecturing. But this wine here, it could change minds.
2017 doesn’t have an easy time of it. In fact, I can’t recall a single mini-vertical in which 2016 didn’t completely outclass the rest. This wine is also rather quiet on the nose. But very, very different. The fruit is riper, almost orange, somewhere between multivitamin juice and an exotic fruit basket. There’s no stone, but instead apricot and some butter. It feels a few years older, even though it actually has one less under its belt. And it’s the same on the palate. The acidity is softer, the fruit more orange, and it lacks drive. At least in comparison. Because next to what the ‘16 fires off, the ‘17 just seems tired. You really notice this when you first try the ‘17 after a half-hour break. It’s good, really good, it just suffers from how great the other wine is.
Nonetheless the 2017 also makes it stably into evening number two. I even like it a little more on this second evening. The fruit has become even more exotic, mango, more pineapple and now also more freshness. It still can’t really hold its own in a direct comparison, but it has moved closer. There’s blood orange, grapefruit, and now a lot of freshness when drinking. If it takes another step like this on the second evening, it will still be nowhere near the end of its maturation potential. Just open it on its own. Or at least not next to 2016.
In any case, I am reconciled and reassured. The 2015 almost-sherry was a downward outlier. Just bad luck. Natural product. You’re just not in it, unlike the tree bark.