NYC somm Peter Weltman (left) was lucky that Christoph Schaefer of the Willi Schaefer estate in Graach/Mosel (right) was the first winemaker he ever visited in Germany. What better place could there be to start deep immersion in the world of this nation’s Rieslings than here at Willi Schaefer with some of the most delicate and intense, archetypal and lovable (A&L) wines from my favorite grape. That last pair of descriptors says everything about what makes these wines so different from the great majority of the world’s best wines. How many of them are really A&L? Mostly they’re either A or L and don’t have much of the other to offer, at least no to the high degree that is possible with German Rieslings when they are of the calibre of the Willi Schaefer wines. Personally the wines I tend to enjoy least are those which are over-loaded with the archetypal thing to the point of being enormously self-important. The phrase “icon wines” describes this kind of untouchable vinous monuments to themselves perfectly. Icons are there to be venerated and are so holy you could never feel something as simple as love for them. There is none of this pomposity to the Schaefer Rieslings, rather they speak directly to you, welcome love and calmly accept statements like, “sorry, not my thing.”
I don’t think the fact that a wine has reached a great age is really a criterium for judging its quality, because I’ve had some really sensational tasting wines that were extremely young (for example the 2013 de Fleveaux Sauvignon Blanc from South Africa – and I promise you that normally I hate Sauvignon Blanc). However, when joyful and subtle young Rieslings of the kind the Schaefer’s have been making for generations get the opportunity to age for the equivalent of a generation, like the bottles in the Schaefers Schatzkammer pictured above, then they can taste simultaneously mysterious and sexy. That’s the way the 1976 Graacher Himmelreich Riesling Auslese was this evening, as well as tasting mellow and creamy, yet very alive and enticing. Tasting this wine persuaded me that I must work much harder to live a healthy life so that I will still be around to experience the literally brilliant 2013s from Willi Schaefer reach the same kind of age. Please don’t lead me astray from the true path of Riesling!
