Old Riesling Kabinett


• By Allen Dale "Ole" Olson   |   Thursday, December 3, 2009 at 6:19 pm   |     |   Print   |   Permalink

I wasn’t surprised to find that bottle of 1962 Jungfer Riesling Kabinett in a dusty corner of my wine cellar; I knew it was there. I was surprised that I decided to open it after all these years.  I had bought it from Weingut Weil in the Rheingau in 1967, where I bought many cases of wine over the years. This particular bottle just seemed to escape whenever I sought something from the cellar. After so many years, I just assumed that it was dying a slow, peaceful death and decided to leave it alone. While I knew that a well made dry Riesling could take 10 or 12 years in bottle, it never occurred to me that one could live longer.

How much longer I still don’t know, because when I opened this one after nearly 50 years in bottle, it had not lasted — but I get ahead of my story.

It was Thanksgiving season, and the reason for opening it now had to do with a good friend who, like me, had cut his wine teeth on German wine. Like me, his tastes had changed over the years to accommodate wines from around the world but mostly toward the legendary reds from Bordeaux, Burgundy, Piedmont, and  Napa. But also like me, he was curious about a near-50-year-old dry Riesling.

Sweeter Rieslings, such as late harvest or Beerenauslese, do enjoy long lives. Dryer ones are not so fortunate. My bottle was only Kabinett level, not even a Spatlese, so its chances for lengthy survival were minimal.

There was no ullage. Forty-seven years of friendly cellaring had allowed no seepage. The cork was remarkably tight and crumbled only slightly, but there were no thrilling aromas or chanting angels as it slithered out of the bottle. So far, so good — or not too bad.

The wine came out the color of a young tawny port. It was not foul as one finds with a corked wine. It emitted a somewhat burnt odor, not unpleasant. It proved somewhat friendly to the palate but it was obviously the final caress of a mortally wounded comrade headed for the Promised Land. My friend and I and our wives sipped on the wine for several minutes, marveling at its pluck but in agreement that it did not provide a joyous drink.

I have never been one to keep a wine for the sake of keeping it. This exceptionally old bottle was a fluke in my possesion. (I do keep robust reds a decade or so, even longer, but always with the goal of drinking them, preferably sharing them, not using them as trophies or investments.) For those of you wondering how long to keep your fine wines, let my Riesling serve as an example; don’t keep them too long.

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