A few days later we were settles for the last tasting of the tour at Weingut Vollenweider in Trarbach. We arrived ca. 25 minutes late since I had the wrong adress. I hate coming late to appointments like this, but Daniel Vollenweider was not the man that seemed to get upset over such things. He was very friendly and entusiastic as he showed us the newly bought and large house with the gigantic cellars. This will definitely be a great place for making and storing wine, when he is fully installed. All his wines are from the Wolfer Goldgrube-site and is divided in six parcels.
Wolfer Goldgrube spätlese 2001, AP 0302
This is the bottling which jokingly is called the "trocken" as Vollenweider intended to make a drier style riesling, but the fermentation stopped at 30 g/L rs. The grapes all comes from the sub-plot Koblay. The wine has a straw colour and showed a very mineral, slatey nose, slightly flowery, exotic fruits in it. Good body. Fine concentration. Young, mineral character. Interesting. Acidity is good. Balance is good. Length is good. A very good start indeed.
Wolfer Goldgrube Kabinett 2001, AP 0102
Grapes from a pre-harvest of all the six plots. Lighter colour. Clean flowery, honeyed nose. Less mineral. Fuller in the mouth, sweeter. More flowery and a little exotic. Quite spritzy wine with a good balance and length. A bit simple but decent kabinett.
Wolfer Goldgrube Spätlese 2000, AP 0201
Light straw colour. More complex nose of light firn, flowers. Some minerals. Good body. A very good 2000 that shows good structure and concentration. Nice minerality. Young. Very good.
Wolfer Goldgrube Spätlese 2001, AP 0402
Light straw colour. Intence flowery nose. But again, as the kabinett, a bit simpler. Fruitier and shows less mineral. A very concentrated and powerful spätlese in the mouth. Balance and acid is noe problem. But lacks a mineral depth and character. Daniel Vollenweider said that this was a blend of 4 of his sub-plots (no grapes from koblay and portz) and that he felt that the wine from each plot was better on it's own than in the resulting blend. So he will probably start doing six spätlese-bottlings and only divide them with an AP-number.
Wolfer Goldgrube Portz spätlese 2001, AP 0502
From the sub-plot Portz. Light straw colour. Great nose. Much wider and more complete than the previous wine. Has the same flowery and exotic notes, but with a great mineral depth. In the mouth this is one greatly concentrated spätlese. Sweetness greatly balanced. Exotic fruits. Flowery and very mineral. Young and spritzy. Just a tremendous spätlese. Huge potensial.
Wolfer Goldgrube Auslese 2001, AP 0602
Made from 100% botrytised grapes as this is Vollenweiders philosophy of what an auslese is. The colour is straw and the nose is honeyed and raisiny. It is a good and thick wine with great concentration and a thick body. Some hints of dried flowers. Lower acidity than the Portz. Very young yet. It is good, but IMO the spätlese Portz is superior.
Wolfer Goldgrube Auslese GK 2000, AP 0401
Yellow colour. More intence and "sweeter" nose. More botrytis. Honeyed nose. Also more complexity. Powerful and fat entrance in the mouth. Rich and sweet but great acids. Hints of oranges and apples in the finish. Good length. Another tremendous effort. Showing better balance and depth than the auslese. This will be outstanding.
Arnt Egil Nordlien
Sep-02