On Jul 3, 9:06 am, TB wrote:
On 2 Jul, 07:37, cwdjrxyz wrote:



The wine is Scharzhoferger Feine Auslese Nikolauswein 1970, Koch,
(geerntet 5./6. Dezember). The wine was properly stored since shortly
after release, the fill was very high, and the cork was sound.

The color is bright lemon. There is no oxidation and only a little,
clean petrol character. As good Scharzhofberger usually is, it is a
sort of ultra clean essence of Riesling. It has intense fruit and some
floral character. There is some mixed citrus fruit along with some
light stone fruit. The balance is near perfect, although the wine is
quite sweet.

Although the best Scharzhofberger for a given ripeness grade often
comes from Egon Muller, others may outstanding wine from time to time.
This wine was labeled under the old German wine laws, which greatly
changed for the 1971 vintage and after. Today, one could not mention
feine(fine) on the label. Both Nikolauswein and the date gathered
could not be mentioned. St. Nikolaus day comes in early December in
Germany, and the children get their gifts then. The bottle has a
picture of a German style St. Nikolaus on the label. Many of the
grapes gathered early in the season in 1970 did not make exceptional
wines. However, for a few who did not pick until at least December,
some exceptional auslesen and eiswein was made.

The big surprise for me is that a Nikolauswein was an Auslese. I
thought, obviously wrongly, that they would be Eiswen or in extreme
situations a TBA...One lives and learns...

In the pre-1971 German wine law days, many things were possible. This
is the only Nikolaus wine I have had. But since it depends on the date
of harvest, even a spatlese Nikolaus wine would not surprise me. Even
after the new 1971 wine laws it was perfectly legal to sell a kabinett
eisewein, and a few did. Needless to say, most such eisweins might
better have been labeled "escence of greeness". But one also could
have a TBA eiswein, often outstanding. The law was changed within a
few years so that eiswein could only be used for wines made from
grapes that reach BA ot TBA standard, but one could not include BA
orTBA on the label in addition to eiswein. A few of the old auslese
eisweins were not bad.