Poached peach and crabapple make for an at once rich and tartly bright combination in Kesselstatt’s 2011 Scharzhofberger Riesling Kabinett, whose thyme-like note is not at all atypical of the herbal side displayed by drier wines from this great site. Buoyant (at 11.5% alcohol), invigoratingly incisive and juicy, this finishes with sustained refreshment if no inklings of profundity. It will probably display greater knittedness in another year or two and perhaps also greater complexity. Certainly I wouldn’t hesitate to employ it through at least 2020.
Annegret Reh was extremely upbeat about what she and vineyard manager-cellarmaster Wolfgang Mertes accomplished in vintage 2011, and if a Beerenauslese from Kaseler Nies’chen and Trockenbeerenauslesen from the Scharzhofberg and Josephshof that were still fermenting as of last autumn prove consistent with the quartet of nobly sweet concentrates that I already tasted, then this vintage will likely go down in estate annals above all for its upper-Pradikat beauties. Despite high average must weights, buoyancy and unobtrusive alcohol characterized most of Reh’s dry wines, as well as her estimable Kabinetts – most of which are nowadays (in what I deem an admirable departure from prevalent contemporary norms) being finishing virtually dry and thus inevitably carry analytically higher alcohol. Late-fermentors – and hence bottled in mid-summer rather than with the majority of this collection in March and April – this year’s Kesselstatt Grosse Gewachse ended up analytically almost shockingly low (upper-fives) in acidity, yet this didn’t seem to significantly handicap their performances. When it comes to this year’s Spatlesen, though, despite levels of residual sugar that aren’t analytically at all extreme, sweetness tends to dominate over refreshment or finer points, a reflection of botrytis and relatively low acidity. That must weights did not go even higher and that animation and levity generally prevail in the finished Kesselstatt 2011s may well be traceable in part (certainly Reh and Mertes, like a number of prominent growers, think so) to an exceedingly sparing and late regimen of leaf removal and in some parcels the complete absence of hedging. Picking began in the last days of September (a first in estate history) though initially only to cull botrytis, and an especially large crew repeatedly revisited most sites, finishing on October 25.
Various importers including P. J. Valckenberg International, Tulsa, OK; tel. (918) 622-0424
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