Battenfeld-Spanier Eisbach Riesling Qba Trocken, Rheinhessen, Germany

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While it’s named for an actual stream, Battenfeld-Spanier’s 2010 Riesling trocken Eisbach could equally well serve to illustrate the dictum nomen est omen, as indulging in its brightly citric and stonily mineral pleasures is a bit like diving into an icy book. Hints of basil and curry in the nose as well as saliva-liberating finishing salinity lend interest and some enticement to take the plunge, and this really is effusively juicy, if sharp, firm stuff. I suspect that opinions will divide, with most tasters, I’d predict, thinking that either I graded it too leniently or was unfairly strict! At 12.5% in alcohol, incidentally, this conveys a genuine sense of levity. I would plan on enjoying it over the next 3-4 years, but would count on monitoring its evolution all along, as I honestly can’t intuit whether this will turn more austere or less. This year’s Battenfeld-Spanier collection – which, in Oliver Spanier’s unavoidable absence, I tasted with his father-in-law Roland Gillot – proved on the whole far more generous in vinous personality than that of nuptial partner-estate Kuhling-Gillot. And while the higher-alcohol and more aggressive phenolics in this estate’s Grosses Gewachs bottlings had in the past led me to sometimes prefer their lighter, more elegant and refreshing, if ostensibly lesser, “village” cuvees, in 2010 the crus were neither alcoholically-freighted nor – with one exception – overly astringent. (Incidentally, I missed tasting this year’s generic Battenfeld-Spanier Riesling.)Imported by Domaine Select Wine Estates, New York, NY; tel. (212) 279-0799