Two Bottles Schnaitmann Simonroth
To close out the year, we’re going local again and drinking a Simonroth Lemberger and a Simonroth Spätburgunder from Schnaitmann, both from 2018.
These two wines are really the final few meters of the sprint towards the new year. At least here on the blog, because on Tuesday there will still be a bottle or two with raclette. As every year. And because traditions somehow have something going for them, we’re drinking local again for the turn of the year. Well, it’s not quite as local as last year, but that’s also because it’s rarely as local as last year. But Fellbach isn’t that far from here either, and I find it quite charming to bring the view of the wine world back here from afar at the end of the year. It puts a nice bow on the last wine year before the new one starts again with drinks of lower alcohol content. Of course, the wines from Rainer Schnaitmann are no longer new, neither in the wine world nor here on the blog. The first time it was Riesling, then we had Trollinger and even Grauburgunder in our glasses. And everything was good, really good. Only the wines whose labels say Simonroth have successfully hidden from me so far. Until today at least. Under the name Simonroth, particularly good wines have been bottled at Weingut Schnaitmann from the very beginning. Back then still without the grape eagle, meanwhile the vineyards from which the grapes for the wines come are classified as VDP Erste Lage or Große Lage. The Lemberger, vintage 2018, is fermented completely spontaneously with whole grapes and then rests for a year and a half in a mixture of small and medium-sized wooden barrels with one-tenth new wood. In the Spätburgunder, same vintage, 80% whole grapes are fermented, the rest is destemmed. The wine is then fermented for another year and a half in small wooden barrels with two-fifths new wood.
The Lemberger feels dark and very spicy. Besides the spice, there are dried plums and roasting spices like bay leaf and juniper. It’s a bit dry in the nose, not in the sense of without sugar, in the sense of the opposite of wet. When you take the first sip, the acidity catches you briefly and then rather dry tannin and structure, which lingers long at the back of the tongue. There’s chocolate, also spice and dark cherry.
The wine becomes more fragrant overnight and over all the aromas that were already there on the first evening, there’s now an ethereal-fragrant note that’s not so easy to pin down. With ethereal fragrance, you’re quickly at eucalyptus, but this doesn’t smell like eucalyptus at all. It just feels similar. But it’s beautiful and suits the wine very well. What it still has is this very dry feeling after each sip. It’s not rough or scruffy, just very dry. And for me, that’s the difference between good and very good right now. But maybe the wine is just in a difficult phase this evening. Because with even more air, the drying effect actually dissipates increasingly. So it might just be a little more patience away from being very good. I still like the wine very much though.
And the Spätburgunder and I don’t have an easy start either. There’s not much coming at first. A bit of earth and fruit that’s far, far away. Not a good omen as a New Year’s wine. If it weren’t for the next few hours. It becomes increasingly meaty, smokier and the fruit also crawls out of its cave. The bottle has now been open for over four hours, the wine in the glass has also been standing there for an hour and is aerated every now and then. And it gets better and better. Sour cherry and juiciness come. Maybe not such a bad omen as first thought.
The development is then very slow overnight. It remains intensely juicy sour cherry, meatiness and smoke. And it remains that I very, very much like to drink it. If you have a bottle of this wine in your cellar and are thinking about opening it now, plan enough time for aeration. At least this bottle here needed that a lot. But then it also rewards you richly for the patience shown. The pull, the fruit and actually also the meaty note, it’s independent, somehow rustic and maybe that’s why it’s so beautiful. This is how 2024 can end and 2025 can begin. And maybe in between a little sparkling water from the neighboring country. We’ll see.