Two Bottles Eisele
We drink from the Eisele winery in Württemberg two wines out of the Edition line: A Trollinger and a Lemberger from 2019.
We were once again after wine from around here and a winery that has been on the list for some time is the Eisele winery from Hessigheim. With red wines from Hessigheim we have had only good experiences so far. In addition to that, the Eisel winery has been several times discovery of the year and has recently won, the previously completely unknown to me Trollinger Summit. Reason enough to once again let a Trollinger enter the glass. We try two wines from the Edition line, the middle segment in the winery. One of them is the already mentioned Trollinger Terrasse from the Besigheimer Wurmberg and the other a Lemberger from the Hessigheimer Felsengarten, both from 2019, both not necessarily sites that bring excitement when mentioned. With the two wines, however, we now have both important grape varieties in Württemberg on the table at the same time. What could possibly go wrong? The vines for the wines are farmed organically, the grapes are harvested by hand, fermented spontaneously and aged in wooden barrels. The red wines of the Edition line remain on the lees for one year.
We start with the Trollinger. It is cloudy and reminds me at first smell almost a bit of the Liaison from Enderle & Moll and that is really not a bad sign. We smell bruised berries, cherry and a bit of dirt. Out the back comes wood, which you also get on the tongue. Light tannin, juicy and fruit arrives in the mouth as well. Air makes the wine more intense. The better half talks about meat juice. Even though she doesn’t even eat meat at all. We both definitely get more and more vanilla and almost a bit of sweetness from the fruit. The wine itself is bone dry with 0.3 grams of residual sugar. But that doesn’t change the fact that it now reminds us of cherry crumble with vanilla sugar. And there’s dirt with every sniff and every sip. Sympathetic dirt. It’s off to a good start. If only more Trollinger were like this. No hint of kitsch or pettiness, and yet this is a saufwein that works great with grilled bratwurst.
It gets crisper overnight. The acidity becomes more grippy, the fruit and bit of dirt remain. Smoke now joins the wood on the nose. The Viertele basically sips itself.
The Lemberger, on the other hand, seems more grown up and also a bit more classic. Here it starts with cherries and a good portion of freshly ground pepper. Behind that, an idea of marzipan. More tannin in the mouth than the Trollinger had, a bit of forest floor and the acidity and fruit are different but no less lovely. The wine benefits even more than the previous one from air this evening. The fruit becomes fuller and darker. Blackberries along with their leaves, further the cherry and plenty of grip from the acidity and tannin to go with it. The pepper has taken a step back by now. I quite like Lemberger anyway and this one is no exception.
Not much happens to the wine overnight. Nothing really increases, but more importantly, it doesn’t lose anything either. And so this is still a really nice Lemberger on the second evening.