2015 Trarbacher Schlossberg Pinot Noir (3 star)

Gentian, bay leaf, black tea, leather, red currant, sour cherry, shrimp-shell reduction and singed red meat make for a strikingly diverse aromatic performance that stimulates the salivary glands. The feel here is fine-grained, even satiny, in contrast with that of the other youthful vintage 2015 Molitor Pinot Noirs. The sweet-saline savor and iodine notes of shrimp-shell reduction, allied to pure, juicy red berry fruit, make for a memorably mouthwatering as well as smoke- and stone-tinged finish. I anticipate outstanding bottle evolution, but don’t try to tell me you can’t relish this wine already! (As I have had previous occasions to mention, Molitor’s small, steep, old-vines parcel in the highly heterogeneous Trarbacher Schlossberg Einzellage is isolated in the woods along the narrow Kautenbachtal, not far below the Ungsberg vineyard, and is unfortunately highly susceptible to erosion, botrytis and hungry wild boar, which collectively result in there not being Schlossberg Pinot from every vintage.)

The 2015 Pinot Noir Trarbacher Schlossberg *** is ripe and very concentrated on the very spicy, fresh, wonderfully perfumed, herbal, slatey and toasty nose with its refreshing and still somewhat greenish phenolic notes that indicate a high(er) proportion of stems during the fermentation. Full-bodied, round and lush on the palate, this is a juicy, dense, enormously concentrated, vital, fresh and firmly structured yet still astringent Pinot that is pretty pithy at the moment, but it improves dramatically with aeration. I tasted the wine over four days, and the improvement was sensational. The Trarbacher Schlossberg is one of my favorite Pinots from Molitor anyway, but the 2015 is one of his finest. The finish is so vital, pure, fresh and salty and gives dramatically precise red berry flavors. This is a tensioned and initially rather robust or masculine Pinot that needs time to polymerize its tannins and become more refined and more feminine. A fascinating experience again. Tasted in March 2019.