Clemens Busch 2003 Pündericher Marienburg Riesling Spätlese Fass 32
This Riesling is from the notorious 2003 vintage. Excessive heat meant extremely ripe grapes but also relatively low acidity. Reason enough for some people to write off the 2003 vintage in Germany, at least for Riesling, whose very essence is its lively acidity. The Pündericher Marienburg Riesling Spätlese from Clemens Busch is a good case in point: the flavor is very concentrated and the acidity is certainly not crisp. But is it therefore only a mediocre wine?
The 2003 Marienburg has a deep golden color. The developed nose offers unusual aromas of cocoa and tangerine fruit with a pronounced intensity. It is sweet on the palate—Rita Busch told me that the grapes from this lot of the Marienburg vineyard were originally meant to be vinified dry. The Weingut only uses wild yeasts, which "work according to their own rules." At some point they (the yeasts) stopped fermentation and thus a good amount of residual sugar was left in the final wine. Rita: "We did not acidify nor did we add cultured yeasts to continue fermentation to dryness. We tasted the wine from barrel no. 32 and liked it the way it was."
This Marienburg bottling carries the name of the barrel ("Fass 32") because the wine did not have enough sugar to be a Spätlese but had more of it than a "halbtrocken" or "feinherb" wine. Its medium acidity actually gives it a softness that is quite pleasant and enticing. The flavor of this Mosel Riesling, however, is as concentrated as it can get: quince and peach with a dash of exotic spices, which are able to keep their intensity over a medium(+) length. It seems to be at its peak now and probably should be drunk within the next couple of years. Despite the hot temperatures and the resulting low acidity levels this Riesling from the impossible 2003 vintage nevertheless enjoyed a fairly long life so far.
The flavor intensity is remarkable and while the acidity may be not as lively this 2003 Riesling demonstrates the seemingly endless spectrum of the world's fines white wine grape even under extreme conditions.
In short:
Good
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