The first thing to say is that I'm not young - I've been drinking fine German wine for very close to 30 years now. Not only can I remember the 75's and 76's when they were in the first flush of youth, I can also remember the 71's when they were in their prime, and it seems to me to be beyond any doubt whatsoever that over the last 30 years there has been a massive decline in the amount of flavour in the typical fine German wine. Note that at least so far as the M-S-R is concerned, I am certainly not saying that the quality of flavour has declined, simply that there is now very little flavour left at all, and this saddens me immensely. I am convinced that little by little, year by year, there has been a considerable decline in the amount of flavour in the wines that I love.
I have no intention whatsoever of naming any specific winemakers; this seems to be a general problem that afflicts German wine at present, although some very famous names indeed seem to be among those worst affected. When the 75's and 76's were young it was easy for me to identify blind which village a wine had come from just from the taste, yet I often cannot do that any more, and it certainly isn't my tastebuds that have failed. I therefore attended the June 2006 VDP tasting of 2005's in London with the specific intention of finding winemakers who still produce full-flavoured wine. Note that I don't mean full-bodied, just full-flavoured.
Of course some villages such as Brauneberg and Lieser do still produce wines that are both fairly big-bodied by Mosel standards and also relatively big-flavoured, but that's not what I want: I want typical delicate light-bodied Mosel, Saar, and Ruwer wines that still have powerful, penetrating flavours, of the kind I can easily remember. Most modern Mosel wines seem to be lighter-flavoured today than the wines of the Ruwer were 30 years ago, and that seems ridiculous.
Thankfully I did find one such winemaker, Hans-Joachim Zilliken, and I have bought a few cases of his excellent full-flavoured wine, and will continue to do so, although sadly he has not agreed to supply me direct...
Now I am not a winemaker, and it's hard for me to guess why this decline in flavour has occurred, but I can think of two possibilities: over-cropping and over-zealous use of filtration and similar techniques. I have read many times over the years of the beneficial effects of low yields, but personally I doubt if this is the major factor. However I well remember an article in the British wine magazine 'Decanter' more than 20 years ago that contained a sentence along the lines of this: 'Modern filtration techniques have improved to such an extent that it is now possible to not only filter out yeast cells, but even bacteria, and all the flavour as well, if you wish.' I am also well aware of other techniques such as centrifugal separation, which could also play a large part.
As I say, I am not a winemaker, let alone a wine technician, and this is only a guess as to the cause, but what I can say for certain is that Hans-Joachim Zilliken knows what the cause is, and has learnt to avoid it. Sadly, when I met him I was so stunned by the full-flavoured intensity of his wines that I didn't have the nerve to ask him what his secret was, although it wouldn't have done me personally much good anyway, even if he had been inclined to reveal his trade secrets. What I hope is that the 'superstar' winemakers of the Mosel get to taste his wines, realise that something has gone badly wrong over the last few decades, and act accordingly, and that is why I've written this. What I hope even more is that the secret becomes well-known among the smaller producers, for thirty years ago there wasn't the ocean of bland Riesling wines there is today; there were many very fine winemakers desperate to sell very fine wines indeed, and a very eager public here in Britain waiting to drink them. Nor was there the need for winemakers to resort to producing wines with higher alcohol content in an attempt to somehow give their otherwise bland wines a bit of flavour, such as is common today; it simply wasn't necessary, as the wines had flavour in abundance.
Sadly the market for fine German wine in Britain is now restricted to a few 'superstar' winemakers, whose wines are only available from a few specialist wine-merchants, and fairly poor quality wines available from some supermarkets. The general public here in Britain know even less of fine German wines than they did 30 years ago. There are a few winemakers listed on this website who still produce wine that is fairly full-flavoured by modern standards, and while they may not have 'superstar' status I find their wines preferable to the ultra-thin wines beloved of some wine writers.
Richard Vernon.
I emailed Mr. Zilliken with these comments, and here is his reply:
Dear Mr. Vernon,
First, thank you very much for your interest in our wines.
Concerning your question about the flavour in our wines:
a) our wines from the Saarburger Rausch are grown on a very soft Devonian slate together with a mixture of diabas. Both will offer a lot of minerals in its weathered form to the vine.
b) the vintage 2005 is something very special and unique in the history of our estate. There is no vintage we can compare with. Botrytis and shrivelled grapes offered us an extreme concentration. Beside the extract and the must-weight, also the acid was rising up by this shrivelling process. So we could find always the right balance between minerality and acidity and fruit on the other side.
c) all our wines are fermented and matured in old german oak-barrels (which are not toasted) in a very humid and cold cellar. The contact time takes about 6 months. This technique helps to round the wine, especially the acidity.
All our fruity wines are made for long aging. So you can enjoy an Auslese, for example, several decades.
Besides, you can have a lot of fun with them, now.
We have very good contacts in the UK, all are doing a good job.
For example:
Lay and Wheeler, Essex,
Justerini and Brooks,
Howard Ripley
Wine Society
All of them are offering a range of our 2005 vintage.
We are very satisfied by working with those companies, so we are not interested in dealing directly to private customers.
I hope my answer is helpful to understand our wines.
Best regards,
Hanno Zilliken