God Wine

I enjoyed this with my friend Michael who had never had Knoll before. Man did he pick an imposing bottle to be his first. We had this before going to the Morrissey show at the Durham Performing Arts Center. If you live in the area, you need to check out DPAC, it is a sensational venue. If you are a Smiths fan or a Morrissey fan, he is still worth seeing and put on a great show. We had fantastic seats, 3rd row center and Michael even caught Morrissey’s shirt to take home for his wife (she asked him to bring her A shirt, he brought her THE shirt!) We had a great night.

1997 Knoll Grüner Veltliner Smaragd Loibenberg
This is one of the best wines I have had in a while. It is hard to put into words just how glorious and stunning it was. It is wines like this that make one say Knoll is god. Seemingly border less in both breadth and depth with luxurious fruit combined with a broad array of wax, white pepper, flowers, honey and more stuff than anyone should bother trying to identify. The texture is rich and silken without being overly heavy. Poised to the point of imperiousness without being smug or arrogant. This wine is so compelling that just writing about it has made me smile. Given its overall balance, this should be able to age for a good while. I don’t know how to predict its life-cycle and I’m not sure anyone does. David Schildknecht and Joe Dougherty have already demurred, so who really knows?

I had always thought that 1999 would be the superior vintage from the Wachau. When it comes to this wine, I may be wrong. This is one of the greatest wines I’ve ever had.