The 2000 Pinot Gris Selection de Grains Nobles offers an especially carnal and smoky aromatic display – again as though the pate were already included in the price of a bottle. Butterscotch, brown spices, and peach preserves also abound in the nose and on a creamy palate. The overall effect is very gentle, yet the sweetness never dominates, and the long finish strikes a fine balance between the honey and caramel of botrytis and the mysteriously carnal typicity of Pinot Gris. Schleret did not essay any nobly sweet bottlings from 2004 or 2005, sticking to a long-standing policy of doing so only in vintages where he deems their potential to be truly exceptional.Charles Schleret (who founded his small, eponymous domaine in the 1950s) may be signaling that he is near retirement, but little had changed since I last visited him nearly fifteen years ago including his enthusiasm, the generally high quality, the style (save for a tad more residual sugar) and simple hierarchy of his wines, their leisurely pace of release, or the large apron he wears over top of a jacket and tie. It is hard here not to succumb to nostalgia, and to become more than a little peeved in recognition of how rare Alsace wine with such versatility, modesty, simple labeling (!) and effortless grace has nowadays become. All this praise aside (and I tasted a range of older wines as well on this occasion) numerous Schleret 2004s (which are currently on the market) were obscured by an overtly milky cast as a byproduct of their malo-lactic fermentations.Importer: Rosenthal Wine Merchant, Pine Plains, NY; tel. (800) 910 1990