the voice of Riesling, now mature...

foto: Dorli Muhr

so tonight is Parsifal at the Met—this last work by that old bastard Wagner is somehow less problematic on stage than the majority of his oeuvre… perhaps because it lacks the bloated and hysterical poetry of the Ring, and makes no significant pretense at drama, invoking rather the ritually devotional, filling it out with the various stuffs of legendry stitched reasonably well together. The first several minutes of instrumental music—I have heard a lot, but can think of nothing more sublime that’s ever reached my ears.

My first time was late July 1976, in Wagner’s own hillside temple in Bayreuth. And I had the excellent fortune of arriving in Germany for the first time as the brilliant 1975 vintage was hitting the café tables… And since then have been a devoted partisan of German Riesling, even while I do acknowledge that the boys in Austria and Alsace—and even Down Under in Oz—also make respectable examples.

...so last Easter I was in Vienna, and had the good fortune to experience my second straight Easter Sunday performance of Parsifal in the Staatsoper. I preferred Waltraud Meier from the year before as Kundry, but Kwangchul Youn was spectacular as Gurnemanz, and Wolfgang Bankl—a fine actor, btw—was quite well-staged as a porno-film director in the role of the self-emasculated sorcerer Klingsor.

and afterward? Well, it was 11PM on Easter Sunday in Vienna—not the liveliest of European capitals—where does one go for a late snack? Answer was, the bistro at Palais Coburg—and there we found a bite to eat, along with a bottle of 1975 Rauenthaler Baiken Spätlese from Schloß Eltz. I did raise an eyebrow when the sommelier first decanted the 37-year-old Riesling and then brought out red Burgundy glasses for it—but he seemed to have done this before, so I didn’t bleat.

and what a treat! The wine could not have been in better shape from this vintage that sometimes gets short shrift in between the monsters from 1976 and the grand & eloquent 71ers...  Not only is Baiken among the more photogenic of the Rheingau vineyards, but it also has the reputation of bringing forth rather long-lived wines. The name comes from the word Biegen, which refers to the way that the vineyard arches its back as it flows over the hillside. There’s not much in the way of limestone here, but rather decomposed slate, mica schist and quarzite, blown over with loess.

and the venerable Spätlese, from this legendary but vanished estate—from what had been a difficult period for the storied Rheingau? Bottle in perfect shape. Dark gold in the glass, not nearly gotten to amber, and the secondaries were in full flower, not yet arrived at the forest-floor that someday would come out in the aromatix—and easy on the petrol... the wine possessed a vibrant acidity still; these ’75ers remain lively, and this one played on the palate with a nice breath of passion fruit and a hint of apple—which had certainly been more prominent in its youth—with lovely mineral highlights on the way down. Not so much residual sugar perceptible in the wine... and the background dishes—nothing fancy—served to bring accentuate its texture. A memorable experience.