Production
Hand-picked fruit from two colder sites on the left side of the Winningen village just under the Premier Cru “Winninger Hamm”. Soils are grey slate, but also sand and clay. To preserve freshness and achieve the lean, crackly, refreshing and linear style, the grapes were harvested relatively early. Grapes are crushed immediately and settled for 24 hours, then spontaneously fermented in stainless steel. Fermentation arrested through cooling and an addition of sulfur. The resulting wine has an RS of 38g/L, but with an acidity of 9 TA it actually feels closer to 10. This wine came about when Daniel enquired whether we might be interested in a 9% thereabouts Kabinett at some point, mainly as way of making use of the UK’s stupid duty tax break. “Umm, yeah I suppose… We’d be interested in any wine from your cellar to be honest Daniel, but we’re not chasing abv’s. It needs to make sense and be delicious regardless of any spreadsheet chasing.” was our honest answer. “Great, I made a couple hundred litres for fun last year so I think I can do a good job… Although the Terrassen-Mosel focusses on dry Riesling, I love drinking the classic light Kabinett styles and would like a crack at it. It actually helps me out because it gives the pickers something to do in-between picking for the trocken Rieslings and the Pinot Noirs!” was his response. Ever the pragmatist, and always super honest and clear! A Kabinett from the guy who is all about DRY, muscular, almost Burgundian Riesling seems a bit strange. But surprise surprise our guy has absolutely knocked it out of the park and produced maybe the most gluggable wine I’ve tasted this year.
Tasting notes
Ripe tangerines, honeydew melon on ice, all drizzled with ripe, Mexican lime juice. Ultimate Summer refreshment. Daniel’s Kabinett is a delicate, joyful, dancing, lively thing of beauty. 9.5% abv, ripe yet lacey flavours, fresh squeezed, energising acidity, and a lithe super feathery light body with RS that you’ll guess is about 3x lower. Somehow, he’s created a wine that has the texture of crumply tissue paper, and has conversely become lighter, fresher and more zippy by retaining some sugar.
Food match
I’m supposed to say Thai, Chinese or generic Asian flavours with chilli. That works, of course. But what works better is sitting in a paddling pool during a British heatwave, BBQ hot dog in one hand, and a chilled (dare I say “mit eis”) glass of this in the other.