Bott’s 2008 Pinot Gris Furstentum displays very ripe, brown-spiced peach on a subtly creamy palate, yet at the same time is possessed of Riesling-like, lemony-bright acidity. For now, the impression is slightly inharmonious – and with 30 grams of residual sugar nearly cancelled-out – although there is no question this finishes with rapier penetration, ample refreshment, and energy to spare for at least the next decade. Toasted nuts and chalk add interest without in any way rendering this more youthfully user-friendly. The fruit was super-healthy asserts Bott, right up to its mid-October harvest, by which time it was also substantially wind-desiccated, explaining the high acidity and near-severity of this wine’s concentration. But, he readily admits, a rigorous sorting was required to remove under-ripe bunches. “For me it was not a classic year for V.T. or S.G.N.,” says Jean-Christophe Bott of 2009. “There was very little botrytis, and when we started picking it was with the aim to make the best possible normal range. I found most of the Gewurztraminer very aromatic and fruity, but soft and lacking the depth of their sites; too much on the varietal side, so I preferred to mostly declassify, and also because in 2008 we had a great vintage whose wines really taste of their sites.” My judgment on 2008 is qualified. Detached tartness and decidedly fungal overtones suggest that in some instances fruit had to be harvested lest it succumb to botrytis. A measure of that fungal advance is that the nobly sweet wines in the present collection are enormously high in sugar and quite strongly marked by botrytis, yet represent the product of picking entire blocks rather than bunch-selection.Various importers, including Beaune Imports, Berkeley, CA; tel. (510) 559 1040 and Winebow, Montvale, NJ; tel. (201) 445-0620