MCF Rare Wine
Falkenstein: The Edge...
I love classic German Riesling, but I'll admit that it I'm not a Riesling savant (yes, there are many people I would classify as Riesling savants). It's something I enjoy immensely, but the knack I feel I have for the wines of Piedmont or Campania or Burgundy (etc.) just isn't there for Riesling. It's probably mostly due to my lackluster focusing skills, but that's another discussion.
But I know what I like and I have producers who I rely on, and I'm totally comfortable admitting that. 
One such producer whose wines I've really (really) come to admire are those of Hofgut Falkenstein in the Saar. Erich Weber and his son Johannes, produce wines that are outliers in the region for a number of reasons, many having to do with the ultra-traditional methods used in both the vineyard and the cellar, but, without going into all the wine-speak minutiae, I will say that the most important way they distinguish themselves is in the glass.
These wines taste like no other wines in the region. Falkenstein's style is...how to describe it...lazer-like...screamingly bright and racy...high-mindedly challenging.
The perception of both the ripeness and the verve is quite singular.
If someone like Prum is Mozart (endlessly profound, in a mostly straightforward way), Falkenstein is more Hindemith (expressing the same level of artistic wisdom, but in a way that demands your attention and contemplation).
Team Weber doesn't set out to make 'trocken' (dry) or 'feinherb' (off-dry) from the outset, rather they let each wine do its thing in the cellar and however they turn out is how they are designated.
The same plot can be trocken one year and feinherb the next.
The 'Trocken' bottlings are relentlessly...well...trocken and the 'Feinherb' show more texture as you would imagine, but still have the RPMs dialed way up.
2016 is, for the second straight vintage, a benchmark for the Mosel region, though where the 2015s were more about ripeness and density, the 2016s lean more on clarity and energy.
Couple that with Falkenstein's style and you have one hell of a set of wines.
Sure, they are, in a way, Riesling for the hard core Mosel-head, but in the Venn Diagram of Riesling fandom, with their balance of ripeness and all-out energy, I believe that they definitely can fall right into the space where all palates overlap.
Below is a cross-section of the Falkenstein lineup and ALL OF THESE WINES are extremely limited in availability, and thus we reserve the right to allocate orders.
HOFGUT FALKENSTEIN 2016
Riesling Auslese Krettnacher Euchariusberg $28 - dense, racy and complex.
Wesburgunder Spatlese Niedermenninger Herrenberg $23 - the lone Pinot Blanc: structured, mineral and savory.
Riesling Spatlese Krettnacher Euchariusberg (AP14) $24 - elegant and high-toned with a nice smokey element.
Riesling Spatlese TROCKEN Krettnacher Altenberg $22 - flowery, taut and bright.
Riesling Spatlese TROCKEN Krettnacher Ober Schäfershaus $28 - ripe and briny, with a classic 'green' profile.
Sekt Brut $32- a screamingly delicious, super rare sparkling Riesling. Colorful across the palate, with a bone-dry finish.
Matt Franco
MCF Rare Wine, Ltd
249 West 13th Street
New York 10011
mcf@mcf-rarewine.com
212.255.8870
www.mcf-rarewine.com
