I’m doing something I almost never do. I’m pulling punches. There are wines I tasted but for which I decided not to publish my notes. That isn’t because I’m “protecting” anyone. It’s because, as I thought about it, I started to wonder what good it would do. The wines were relatively incidental. One was a dry wine but not a GG, and the other was a Kabinett I hadn’t seen before, and which was decisively different from anything I’d ever tasted from Diel. In considering whose interests would be served by describing my dismay at those wines, it grew clear that it was my ego’s. The notes wouldn’t have enlightened you or guarded you from a wine you’d otherwise have been tempted to buy, and they wouldn’t have elucidated anything that might have been helpful to the producer.
Mind you, not all these notes are flattering, but when I publish questions about a wine I have to ask myself, is this interesting, helpful? I think if I don’t do that, I become a Little-Tin-God issuing imperial judgments in order to show what a discerning taster and stern judge I am. If a wine is important in the estate’s lineup, or if it encapsulates a principle worth discussing, I’ll speak my mind, but ragging on every single little wine comes close to being an exercise in self-indulgence.
So here are the fine ones, the good ones, the interestingly challenged ones, and if you happen upon a wine that’s not discussed below, you may infer I either didn’t like it or didn’t taste it.
