Weekly Tasting Report (Aug 17-23): Rare and Sweet From Germany and South Africa, More Napa ’18 Magic and a Bounty of Spain’s Best

Rare sweet wines dominate the top of the list of what we tasted and rated around the world over the last week, including an amazing trockenbeerenauslese and beerenauslese from Germany’s Rheingau legend, Robert Weil, and the mythical sweet white of South Africa, Klein Constantia Constantia Vin de Constance Natural Sweet Wine 2018. Both have been making wines for centuries. Weil began in 1867, and Constantia started making wine at the end of the 1600s. Their recent releases, listed below, may be some of their best.

Perhaps not as lofty or historical, the new releases from Napa Valley’s Favia, Tuscany’s Mazzei, and the Pfalz’s Muller-Catoir are equally impressive and also at the top of our list. The Mazzei family, in Florence, have been making wine since 1435, and they say their just-released blend of merlot and sangiovese, Siepi 2019, from the Chianti Classico region, is “their best wine ever.”

Favia’s Andy Erickson said the same thing this morning during a Zoom interview about the new release of he and his wife’s 2018 reds, and added that he “loved the energy and density of the wines” even though they remain fresh and balanced. Meanwhile, the dry whites of Muller-Catoir continue to be some of the best in Germany, particularly bottlings like the Müller-Catoir Riesling Pfalz Bürgergarten Im Breumel GG 2020.

Our Senior Editor Stuart Pigott continues to be blown away by the quality of the 2020 vintage in Europe, despite the heat and dry growing seasons for most of the continent. He didn’t expect to find so many great wines following the “vintage of his career” – 2019 – but he loves the new releases from Weil and Muller Catoir.

NAPA VINTAGES: Andy Erickson on the 2019 Leviathan and Favia wines.

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EXQUISITE DRINKABILITY

I have had many of those thought-provoking moments with the 2018 vintage in Napa Valley, and Andy and Annie Erickson’s new releases, particularly their cabernets from Oakville and Coombsville, highlight this. The pair of reds have exquisite drinkability because of their balance and tension, yet there’s an underlying density and structure that will keep them going on for years ahead. This is the magic of the 2018 vintage for reds in Napa Valley, as I have written about and said over the last 12 months.

Don’t miss out on Erickson’s new release of Leviathan, his value cabernet sauvignon blend that he calls “the wine he would want to drink every day at a steakhouse.” It might be one of the best values in reds out there with a steakhouse vibe, and it costs about $39.95 a bottle in the U.S. It started as a Napa Valley red and now includes grapes from Sonoma as well as Amador County, among others. Erickson, a heralded consulting enologist in Napa Valley, also works with growers to produce balanced and fresh grapes that transpire into the same character in the bottle.

I cannot say that 2019 for Tuscany will be the same as 2018 for Napa, but it’s looking really outstanding as a vintage overall. It took a year for the vines to recover from the terribly hot and dry 2017, even though many excellent reds were made in 2018. The 2019s are more typical for Tuscany regardless of whether they are local varieties, such as sangiovese, or international ones like merlot or syrah. The wines have better depth of fruit and riper and more polished tannins. So far, so good!

The same can be said about the Spanish wines we are tasting and rating in Hong Kong at the moment in our tasting room. We have about 1,500 wines to review and we are excited to be rating them. This report includes a few dozen Riojas, among others, and the Gran Reservas from Contino and La Rioja Alta stole the limelight. La Rioja Alta Rioja Gran Reserva 890 2010 is a longtime favorite and is only produced in exceptional years, such as the 2010. It has such intensity of flavor and character from the long barrel aging. The Contino Rioja Gran Reserva 2015 is equally perfumed and aromatic but shows a little more concentration from the ripe and fresher vintage.

READ MORE: NEW NAPA VALLEY WINES HIGHLIGHT HARMONY AND REFINEMENT WITH 2018 VINTAGE

Stuart and Tasting Editor Jo Cooke have been equally happy to be rating hundreds of wines from Southern Italy, mostly Sicily and Campania. Sicily is proving very constant with wineries across the island, making many outstanding-quality wines. We only wish that more wines were in the 95- to 100-point quality level. Campania seems a little hit and miss this year, with numerous wines receiving ratings of less than 90 points due to poor winemaking. It’s a shame because I have loved the great reds and whites of Campania since the 1980s, when I first started going there and marveled at the old wines of Mastroberadino. However, more wines are being reviewed as I write this, so stay tuned.

Contributing Editor Nick Stock had better luck over the last week rating some highly prized wines from South Australia, including releases from Clarendon Hills, Elderton and Jim Barry. The Jim Barry Shiraz Clare Valley The Armagh 2017 is now one of the few Aussie wines traded through wine merchants in Bordeaux, and the 2017 is a more delicate bottling compared with past vintages.

There are even some wines rated from New York state in this report, and I think you will be surprised by the quality. See you next week.

– James Suckling, Chairman/Editor

The list of wines below is comprised of bottles tasted and rated during the previous week by James and other tasters at JamesSuckling.com. They include many latest releases not yet available on the market, but which will be available soon. Some will be included in upcoming tasting reports. 

Note: You can sort the wines below by country, vintage, score and alphabetically by winery name. You can also search for specific wines in the search bar.