Continuing on my quest for low alcohol wines to enjoy after hiking, I headed to the Riesling section of the wine shop that’s near my office. It’s really irritating me that I can’t think of the name and I can’t find a listing for it in the yellow pages. It’s actually a nice shop and works great when I need a bottle to bring somewhere with me after work…seeing as how a day baking in the car doesn’t do much for wine….! Anyway, I picked the 2005 Durkheimer Michelsberg Darting Riesling Kabinett. It had a screw cap closure, clocked in at 10% alcohol by volume, and cost me $17.99.
So this did the trick, but I wouldn’t buy it again. There are better Rieslings for the sameish price that have some more structure and acidity. On the nose I found lime, honey, flowers, honeysuckle, stone, spice, green apple, sourdough bread. The nose seemed a bit waxy. In the mouth I got lime, lemon zest, tangerine, honey, apple, pear, it just had lots of fruit. Slightly tangy and a little too sweet for my taste.
Wannabe Wino Wine Blog 
Have you ever tried Navarro Gewurztraminer? Bone dry, low alcohol, from Mendocino area, not easily available, but try contacting them on the net. Where do you hike?
Cheers, Winewiz
you need to ask that wine shop why they aren’t listed in the Yellow Pages. How is anyone going to find them???
Too bad– I love a lot of Darting’s wines, but haven’t had this one.
I find the 05’s less accessible now than the 06 and 07’s– I have stashed most of my 05’s offsite, and the ones I have consumed, I have decanted. Even at 4 years out, I find most of the 05’s hide their acidity under crazy fruit until they’ve been open for an hour or so.
In 05 most people’s Kabinett was more like Spatlese.
Jerry, I have! I wrote about it here a few months ago, I love it! This time we were off hiking in TN in the Smoky Mountains!
No idea ken! No internet presence at all, that always surprises me!
Hardy-maybe it was too young. It was just all fruit!