Like the corresponding Les Pierrets bottlings of the vintage, Josmeyer’s 2007 Riesling Brand harbors only 12.5% alcohol, and thanks to its firm acids and extract, it tastes completely dry even with 10 grams of residual sugar. Purple plum, lime, apple, gentian, violet, and fennel on the nose are joined on a luscious and buoyant palate by saliva-inducing and invigorating mineral salts and bitterness of huckleberry and cassis. Flowers, herbs and refreshing citrus and pit fruits seem to shower the palate in an effusively juicy finish, a display I associate above all with granite sites like this. As lovely as this is today, it should be worth following for at least a dozen years. Jean Meyer and his son-in-law Christopher Ehrhart are among the many passionate proponents of biodynamic viticulture who insist that this regimen is responsible for their being able to harvest earlier. That may be all to the good if it means lower potential alcohol (and thus also potentially dry) wines of satisfying ripeness. Time was when the wines here were nearly all modest in alcohol yet analytically dry, even well after a regional trend had set in toward sweetness. And in those instances where today’s bottlings harbor residual sugar measurable in single digits, I can generally agree with Jean Meyer that – even in a botrytis-challenged year like 2006 – “the balance is ok. And besides,” he adds, “I hate to try to push to get the wine to go dry because you can fatigue it.” As for alcohol, judging by performance – even if one doesn’t look at the analyses – some of the 2007s here are challenged by their high levels, even though picking began on the first of September, the earliest in the estate’s more than 150 year history. Meyer and Ehrhart say they had planned to begin picking in 2006 on precisely the September 17 when tropic-like torrents fell, forcing on them a protracted, highly selective, and ultimately tiny harvest. I did not have chance to taste nearly all of the many cuvees (including lot variations on a given label) that – as usual – emanated from this estate in 2007, and (due to time constraints) tasted significantly fewer of their 2006s.Importer: Terlato Wines International, Lake Bluff, IL; tel. (847) 604-8900
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