On Tuesday, September 21, 2021 – exactly 50 years after the 1971 German wine law created “the Kabinett” as the lowest category level on the Prädikat ladder (ascending from Kabinett to Spätlese, Auslese and beyond) – Julian Haart’s 2020 Ohligsberg Kabinett “Alte Reben” became what I believe to be the first 100-point Kabinett in the history of the world.
To be clear: I think scoring wine is preposterous and, to be honest, the fact that it continues for serious, small production wine baffles me. Julian and Nadine Haart obviously deserve the accolades and the praise; I represent their wines in the U.S. and they are my friends. I’m so happy for them and proud. (Please note: I have none of this wine available – this is not a selling article.)
However, what’s important, even historic, is what this score means, what it signifies at a deeper level.
This score is an acknowledgment, by the critical institutions, that a simple “Kabinett” can be perfect.
It is nothing less than a formal repudiation of the quality hierarchy created (out of a confusing mix of historical precedent and thin air) that correlated ripeness and in many cases sweetness, with “quality” a priori.
The fact that this correlation – ripeness to sweetness to quality – largely continues to this day among the critical institutions, despite the ease of ripeness, despite the ubiquity of sweetness, despite the growing appreciation and wildly increasing quality Kabinett, gently off-dry, dry-tasting and dry wines, stupefies me. Nearly all the critics I speak with, philosophically, agree… yet then you see the scores and nearly always, the dessert wines get the “perfect” scores and the numbers decrease as you slide down the quality scale.
This teaches the larger public – some perhaps just getting interested in German wine? – that the really good stuff is all sweet. It teaches people to look elsewhere if they like dry wines. This is, obviously, utter nonsense.
I have argued for the 100-point Kabinett for the last decade-plus with nearly every critic I’ve ever met. (You should too – it’s fun!) It’s not that I have anything against the sweeter wines – I love, love, many of them. I just believe quality should be judged independently of residual sugar.
If every category – Kabinett, Spätlese, Auslese – has its own identity, its own style, then one should, in theory, be able to achieve “perfection” within the limitations of the category.
There are, however, even larger considerations when thinking about the Kabinett – both what it is and what it will become – in terms of both climate change and the marketplace. And they are related.
I figured I’d just include an excerpt from my forthcoming book, tentatively titled The Wines of Germany or, alternatively, How to Cook a Wolf and Drink Riesling. I began writing this probably two years ago; the version below has been edited as recently as winter 2021.
{ considerations for the new marketplace }
“the Kabinett”
It should not be surprising to see the growing elevation of the Kabinett as a category. It is a magical, angelic, singular style of wine. I am not a neutral party in this discussion; I love Kabinett.
I predict this style will become only more and more important. This will become, fairly soon, the most collectible and sought after of the Prädikats. In our new, warmer world, this wine style will be the rarity, not the Auslesen or the higher Prädikats.
Daniel Vollenweider, one of the Mosel’s top practitioners of Prädikat wines, wrote me after the 2019 harvest, explaining the rarity of his Kabinett: “I know the proportions of availability are ‘wrong,’ that I have so little Kabinett and more Spätlesen and Auslesen. But the reality is that Kabinett is becoming more and more difficult to make. I think we have to accept that Kabinett is just not an entry level wine.”
Many serious German wine fans had come to this conclusion quite a while ago; now the market is catching up.
Egon Müller was very much ahead of this curve. As stated, the Kabinett was invented as a wine style in 1971: Egon sent his first Kabinett to the famous German auctions in 1972, an event reserved by most estates for only the sweetest and highest “quality” levels: Auslesen, Beerenauslesen (BA) and Trockenbeerenauslese (TBA). Egon’s Kabinett auction bottling has, deservedly, gained a very strong following. It currently sells for well over 200 Euros a bottle.
Over the last decade, a new roster of growers has begun bringing the once-lowly Kabinett to the auctions, including Clemens Busch, Lauer, Schlossgut Diel, Schloss Lieser, von Othegraven and von Schubert, to name only a few. At the auctions, these wines remain relative bargains. In ten years’ time, they will not be.
Klaus Peter Keller was also very much ahead of the curve; he has long been a fan of Kabinetts. While he is most famous for his dry Rieslings, Keller makes exquisite Prädikat wines as well. In 2019, he sent his first Mosel Kabinett, the 2018 Schubertslay Kabinett, to the German auctions. It sold for 550 Euros a bottle. He sent his second Mosel Kabinett, the 2019 Schubertslay Kabinett, to the German auctions the following year. It sold for 700 Euros a bottle.
Obviously the extreme prices that Keller achieves will not become the new normal. However, expect to see ballooning prices for Kabinetts going forward. Expect to see the time-honored relationship between Prädikat and price (Kabinett least expensive, Spätlese more expensive, Auslese even more expensive) begin to pull apart, fracture – eventually it will inverse itself completely.
It’s already happening.
Julian Haart’s two 2019 Kabinett “Alte Reben” (old vines) were both considerably more expensive than his regular Spätlese. Julian has also been ahead of the curve, though all this is changing quickly.
As an expression of just how quickly this is happening, at the German auctions held in September 2020, Egon Müller’s Kabinett auction sold for more than his Spätlese auction.
Even I did not expect this, at least not yet, not this quickly. But it’s happening.
It’s time to good deep on the Kabinetts you love, whether 100 points or not.