Gillot and Spannier’s 2007 Niersteiner Oelberg Riesling Trockenbeerenauslese Louis – 30 liters of which were picked out in the vineyard from the harvest for Grosses Gewachs and nick-named for their son – exhibits a deep copper color; faintly volatile scents and flavors of peach preserves and persimmon laced with pit fruit distillate, musk oil, cinnamon, orange zest and ginger; and finishes long, faintly bitter, and sharply smoky, with gingerbread, candied lemon rind, caramel, resin, and peach preserves. This strikingly viscous and already fascinatingly elixir needs a lot of time in bottle, and should be worth following to at least the third generation. Since taking the reins from her father several years ago, Carolin Gillot has proven to be a dynamo. A showcase modern addition has been made to the beautiful Jugendstil home and cellars in Bodenheim, while vinification – along with a veritable fleet of ancient yet impeccably maintained casks that she and her new husband Oliver Spannier luckily happened-upon in 2007 – has been largely transferred to the cellars of Battenfeld-Spanier in southern Rheinhessen, where the couple are raising their son (soon to be joined by a little brother). All this would of course matter little to readers had not the wines become very good indeed, and following the promising 2006s I tasted, the 2007s and 2008s each mark improvement. This estate’s holdings are in the classic Permian red sandstone of Nierstein’s “Rotem Hang” and the immediately-adjacent and once-famous vineyards of Oppenheim, the Gillot family’s original home base. (Bodenheim’s calcareous sites, too, were once justifiably renowned, but the Gillots have no major holdings there. For an account of the 2007 vintage wines of Battenfeld-Spanier, see elsewhere in this report. The two wineries, incidentally, now have a new legal name in common, which appears in small print on the labels, but can be ignored in descriptive practice.)Imported by Domaine Select Wine Estates, New York, NY; tel. (212) 279-0799
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