The Man from Mosel River

The other day while recovering from jet lag I surfed the internet late at night and as usually came about many interesting sites. One of them was the Wine Spectator’s (www.winespectator.com). Their list of the top 100 wines for 2007 makes an interesting read.

First of all, there are wines from all around the world on this list. Second, one could find wines from 11 US$/bottle (Emery, Athiri Rhodes, Rhodos 2005) to 250 US$/bottle (Krug, Brut Champage 1996), but many wines were in the price category which I would consider as truly affordable.

As a son from the Mosel river I was delighted to find two Mosel Riesling winesamong the top 100. The first was on position 14, a ‘2005 Wehlener Sonnenuhr, Joh. Jos. Prüm, Riesling Auslese’ (US$ 45). The second was on position 87, a ‘2005 Ürziger Würzgarten, Robert Eymael (Mönchhof), Riesling Kabinet’ (US$ 20). By the way, the photo below shows where this Riesling grows. I took it a couple of years ago while cruising along the Mosel. The slopes are steeper than the picture makes us believe.

Ürziger Würzgarten, Mosel River

Among the top 100 wines of 2007 were seven wines from Australia on the list (positions 5, 8, 16, 24, 60, 72, and 84), none came from the Upper Goulburn Wine Region or from the Yarra Valley. Three wines came from the Barossa and the McLaren vale each, the remaining one was an “industrial” wine, the ‘2005 Reserve Shriaz of Yellow Tail, South Eastern Australia’ (US$ 11/bottle). Position 5, the top Australian wine, was a ‘2005 Bella’s Garden, Two Hands Shiraz” from the Barossa Valley.

All the Australian wines were reds. Apart from Shriaz (5 wines), one was a Viognier-Marsanne (the ‘2006 Hermit Crab from D’Arenberg’, McLaren Vale), the other one a GSM (‘2003 GSM, Rosemount’, McLaren Vale). The most dear of the Australian wines was the ‘2006 Carnival of Love, Mollydooker Shiraz’ from McLaren Vale (US$ 80). The second most pricy Australian wine was the “2006 Two Hands Shiraz”. Third came a ‘2005 Entity Shiraz’, by John Duval from the Barossa Valley. Apart from the ‘2005 Schild Shiraz’ for US$ 25, all others were below US$ 20/bottle.

The top wine came, of course from France, and was a ‘2005 Clos des Papes, Chateauneuf-du-Pape’. There were three more French wines among the top 10 (which brings the total to four), two came from California, two from Australia, and one each from Italy and Spain.

I promised myself that I would try to get my hands on some of these wines during 2008.

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 20th, 2008 at 11:19 am and is filed under food and wine. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.