A. Christmann Gimmeldinger Mandelgarten Riesling Grosses Gewachs, Pfalz, Germany

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Christmanns’ 2006 Gimmeldinger Mandelgarten Riesling Grosses Gewachs displays a nuttier richness and lower-toned set of flavors that the other wines in this collection, hinting at coffee, caramel and peach kernel. There is admirable concentration and a quite voluminous sense of ripeness, but the finish is surprisingly austere, stony, and not as engaging as that of its Grosses Gewachs siblings. Possibly the wine was in an awkward phase when I tasted it. I would tentatively plan to drink it within 4-6 years. Karl-Friedrich Christmann asserts that harvesting more than half of one’s grapes by machine and giving hands-on attention only to one’s best parcels is already a widespread strategy among Pfalz estates, but insists 2006 was a vintage in which little good could possibly come form any machine-harvesting. “This year we harvested two parcels with a machine strictly for liter wine – the first machine harvest at our estate in 17 years. The hand work was so difficult this year,” he continues, “that our crew of twenty or twenty-five didn’t even manage their usual minimum pace of a half a hectare a day, but more like a third of a hectare. When I hear some of the accounts of how quickly the crop was picked, I would have to believe that either our people are just plain lazy, or that we work much more meticulously!” The Christmanns opted for less than their usual amount of skin contact; fermentations were relatively rapid, but the wines remained on their fine lees into February. Importer: Classical Wines, Seattle, WA; tel. (206) 547-0255