WTN: 2004 Messmer Halbtrocken Riesling, Pfalz, Germany
My friend Mark and I have been discussing tasting notes, prompted by his post that is in turn a response to an editorial in issue 69 of The Art of Eating. Patrick Matthews, the author of the article in question, argues, among other points, that once tasting notes began to deliver a litany of aromas and flavors to the inquisitive reader, wine makers evolved styles that made those components easier to suss out. (You'll find a somewhat more thorough history of the tasting note in Lawrence Osborne's The Accidental Connoisseur, which is occasionally ill-informed but otherwise enjoyable.)
Our discussion has made me reconsider the humble tasting note. Longtime readers know that I started putting tasting notes here as a way to play with styles and develop my own "tasting note voice." But I still come back to "smells of x, y, and z, and tastes of x,y, and w," even if I try to mix those notes into a larger body of text. And so here I am, wondering what to say about the 2004 MeΒmer Halbtrocken Riesling (sometimes listed as Messmer).
Does it help you when I say it smells of crisp green apple, lime zest, and minerals? That may not be what you sense as you sniff the pale yellow-green wine: A list of smells that reflects my background and sensitivities is only marginally more useful than a score that mirrors my mood and attitudes instead of yours. I found the acidity to be vibrant, perhaps less so than wines from the more northerly Mosel but still enough to balance the residual sugar (between 9 g/L and 18 g/L for halbtrockens). Will your sensitivities be the same as mine? Will you notice the lime juice on the palate or will it taste like something else to you? How much does any of this affect your decision to buy the wine?
Perhaps the poetic, as Mark suggests, is the way to go. The wine is like a compressed spring, steely and taut and aquiver with energy. It has an electric quality that sends frissons of pleasure down your spine as you drink it. Is it a great wine? No. It's a wine that's perfect for what it is, a blend instead of a single-vineyard bottling, but one that's flexible and vibrant and good for everyday drinking (especially at $15 for a liter from Whole Foods). It's refreshing in a way that few California whites achieve. It's immensely enjoyable.
Is it typical of the region? Terry Theise, who imports the wine, mentions the difficulty of pinning down a single characteristic of the Pfalz region that created this wine. "To spend the day at, say, Koehler-Ruprecht," he starts," and the afternoon at, say, Müller-Catoir, is to taste two amazingly great but COMPLETELY MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE families of wines." Wine makers in the region go their own way and produce markedly different styles of wines from one of the most diverse set of grapes in Germany. His attempt to categorize wines from the Pfalz is, naturally, poetic, "Let's start with this: Pfalz wine shows a unique marriage of generosity and elegance; no other wine is at once so expansive and so classy." (Curiously, he also uses the word "taut," and Karen MacNeil describes them as having a "tensile energy.") He describes MeΒmer's wines, which have little in the way of manipulation from MeΒmer himself, as "remarkably pure. They're as clear as glass, etched as sharply as etched glass, transparent as the thinnest glass." (Let us remember, however, that he's trying to sell this bottle.)
So the tasting notes experiment continues here at OWF. Let me know what you find helpful. In the meantime, I might switch to the more poetic version for a while. Colorful metaphor isn't my strong suit, but what better way to develop it?
Technorati tags: food & drink | wine | tasting notes
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