Cool floral and musky animal notes, along with scents of lemon and tangerine zest rise from the glass of Kuhling-Gillot 2008 Niersteiner Oelberg Riesling Grosses Gewachs, which then comes to the palate bright and juicy. As with the corresponding Sacktrager, this displays a measure of finishing bitterness, but at the same time there is energy; brightness and primary citric, pit fruit sappiness; as well as interplay of fruit with smoky mineral and inner-mouth floral notes, all of which point toward the best of what the Grosses Gewachs genre can be. Carolin Gillot – for more about whose estate see my report in issue 185 – professes the importance of spontaneous fermentations to retain refinement in her relatively warm sites as well as – in the ideal case – to render less efficient the conversion of sugar to alcohol. As a measure of Gillot’s recent commercial success and excellent press within Germany, not a single bottle of her village-level Riesling from Oppenheim could be found for me to taste – which was last September – and she reported that the last large order had had to be shorted. Given the quality of this latest collection, things are unlikely to get better in regard to the demand-supply ratio!Importer: Domaine Select Wine Estates, New York, NY; tel. (212) 279-0799