C.H. Berres – Erdener Treppchen – Spätlese – 2001

Ah, the joy of deciphering the German wine label! Erdener is from Erden, a town on the Mosel; Treppchen is the name of the vineyard site, in this case “little staircase”, which is also an Erste Lage, a first-class site. Spätlese implies wine from fully ripe grapes, the lightest of the late harvest styles, a riper category than Kabinett, but it can still be made in either a sweet or dry (trocken) style: here it’s sweet. The Berres family has been making wine since 1510; they are in the 21^st winemaking generation. 2001 was a magnificent German vintage, with low yields but very high quality.

Purely sweet to begin with; moderate petrol notes soon blow in. Two-thirds of the way through the palate I can’t help but think of cashew nuts. Not dense or highly concentrated, but very attractive. Being set against borscht at the dinner table is a transformatively good experience for this wine; it suddenly seems more acidic, more structured.

86/100