{"id":1004,"date":"2021-02-20T16:03:19","date_gmt":"2021-02-20T08:03:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/terroirsense.com\/?p=1004"},"modified":"2021-02-25T14:40:43","modified_gmt":"2021-02-25T06:40:43","slug":"wines-of-the-week%ef%bc%9achateau-rieussec-dr-loosen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/terroirsense.com\/en\/p\/1004.html","title":{"rendered":"Ch\u00e2teau \u00a0Rieussec & Dr.Loosen"},"content":{"rendered":"

2010 Ch\u00e2teau \u00a0Rieussec Sauternes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 95<\/strong><\/p>\n

In 1984, owner Alain Vuillier sold Ch\u00e2teau Rieussec to the owners of Ch\u00e2teau \u00a0Lafite Rothschild<\/a>, Domaines Barons de Rothschild, who bought the estate in a partnership with Albert Frere (who was already part owner of Saint-Emilion\u2019s prestigious Ch\u00e2teau\u00a0Cheval<\/a>\u00a0Blanc<\/a> in\u00a0St. Emilion<\/a>). The very next year, the new owners appointed Charles Chevallier as general director of Ch\u00e2teau Rieussec and so began what is perhaps the greatest thirty year period (relative to fine winemaking) of this storied property\u2019s history.<\/p>\n

Rieussec has a marvellos terroir: topographically, at seventy-eight meters above sea level, its vines are planted in one of the highest parts of the Sauternes Appellation (only d\u2019Yquem\u2019s are higher up) which has important, positive, consequences relative to the appearance of noble rot and the richness of this estate\u2019s wines. A very large property (the eighty or so hectares planted to S\u00e9millon, Sauvignon Blanc and Muscadelle are twice more than what was planted when Chevallier arrived), Rieussec\u2019s vineyards average roughly thirty years of age and straddle two different communes (Sauternes and Fargues) on soils that are a mix of gravel, limestone, sand, and clay. Ch\u00e2teau Rieussec is aged in roughly 50% new French oak barrels from eighteen to twenty-four months, depending on the vintage characteristics. In years marred by bad weather, the estate chooses not to produce a grand vin, such as was the case in1977, 1993 and 2012.<\/p>\n

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The 2010 Ch\u00e2teau Rieussec<\/strong> is just an amazing, truly gorgeous Sauternes. The first sip tells you immediately that you are in the presence of greatness. Very powerful but not needlessly leviathanic, this remarkably precise and complex Rieussec offers a mouthcoating, multifaceted personality just oozing layers of saffron, honey, yellow peach, mango and smoky noble rot. A wine of exceptional purity, at once luscious and refined, not to mention both long and suave on the aftertaste, the 2010 Ch\u00e2teau Rieussec showcases extremely harmonious acidity and well-balanced sweetness. Ready to drink now but just as capable of lasting and improving another fifteen years, this is one Rieussec that will still be drinking splendidly on its 50th birthday. Drinking window: now-2060<\/p>\n

1997 Dr.Loosen \u00dcrziger W<\/strong>\u00fc<\/strong>rzgarten Riesling Spatlese\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 92<\/strong><\/p>\n

Dr.Loosen the estate been around for 200+ years and so it is safe to say they probably know a thing or two there about winemaking. Fact is, until Ernie Loosen took over the family estate (his father had passed\u00a0 away and his mother was threatening to sell the estate unless someone in the family took over; but as all of his brothers were either lawyers or doctors and as he was the only one without a \u201creal\u201d job – he was studying archeology – he had to step in, without really wanting to at the time! But as it turns out, Ernie\u2019s arrival on the scene was the best thing that could have happened to this historic estate that really hadn\u2019t been making memorable wines before his arrival. For Ernie Loosen is one of those rare individuals that combines a remarkable number of qualities in one person: very likeable and quite funny (the man has a truly great sense of humour), a born businessman who could probably sell ice to the Eskimos if he had to, in love with terroir (not at all strange for someone steeped in a love for archeology) and the wines of whom actually taste recognizably different depending on the site they come from (unlike those of many of his colleagues who speak of terroir and then make wines that taste of anything but), a born facilitator (for example, over the years he has struck up successful partnerships with Washington and Australian wineries of note) and much more.<\/p>\n

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The 1997 Dr. Loosen \u00dcrziger W\u00fcrzgarten Riesling Spatlese is a gorgeous example of what our good man Ernie does so well. Here we have a wine that is not just delicious, but that clearly speaks of Riesling (of Mosel Riesling at that), and of the vineyard it comes from. The W\u00fcrzgarten (which traslates into English as \u201cspice garden\u201d), is a truly unique vineyard of the middle Mosel located next to the town of \u00dcrzig just a little upstream from Erden, another of the Mosel\u2019s many famous wine towns. The W\u00fcrzgarten has a unique reddish-coloured soil that is a mix of red slate and \u201crotliegendes\u201d, also a red soil but of volcanic origin (and in this the W\u00fcrzgarten differs completely from the rest of the Mosel\u2019s vineyards that feature, geologically speaking, mostly variations of slate-based soils only). No name could have been more apt: the W\u00fcrzgarten is one of the most logically and best named vineyards of the world. This is because the red soil really does give Riesling wines of noteworthy spiciness: drinking wines made from grapes that grow there really do take you through a walk in a spice garden at every sip. This spiciness is absolutely easy to recognize and unmistakable: I guarantee you that it is absolutely impossible not to recognize a wine from the \u00dcrziger W\u00fcrzgarten when tasting wines blind. The wines really are completely different from say those of the nearby and just as famous Wehlener Sonnenuhr and Erdener Pr\u00e4lat vineyards that anyone with a just a little bit of experience will always be able to recognize an \u00dcrziger W\u00fcrzgarten wine blind. The power of terroir, indeed!<\/p>\n

The 1997 Dr.Loosen \u00dcrziger W\u00fcrzgarten Riesling Spatlese<\/strong> (\u201cspatlese\u201d means late harvest),\u00a0 is very pretty, soft and juicy, dainty white wine, offering nuances of yellow apple, pear, lemon tart, orange peel, cinnamon, white pepper, and chamomile, all lifted by hints of white flowers. It finishes very long and clean with just a whisper of sweet figs:, admittedly, it isn\u2019t exactly the last word in concentration at this level of sweetness, but it\u2019s just so lip-smacking good that you won\u2019t want to put the glass back down. Made from 100-120 years old vines that have never been touched by phylloxera, this now 24 years old wine is still amazingly light and lively and will be drinking splendidly (if you can believe it!) for another ten years easily. Well done! Drinking window: now- 2030.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

2010 Ch\u00e2teau \u00a0Rieussec Sauternes
\n1997 Dr.Loosen \u00dcrziger W\u00fcrzgarten Riesling Spatlese<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":1005,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"pmpro_default_level":"","footnotes":"","_wp_rev_ctl_limit":""},"categories":[125],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1004","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-wines-of-the-week","pmpro-has-access"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/terroirsense.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1004","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/terroirsense.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/terroirsense.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/terroirsense.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/terroirsense.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1004"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/terroirsense.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1004\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1171,"href":"https:\/\/terroirsense.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1004\/revisions\/1171"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/terroirsense.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1005"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/terroirsense.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1004"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/terroirsense.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1004"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/terroirsense.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1004"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}