The Hirtzbergers’ “village level” 2009 Riesling Beerenauslese Spitzer is a virtual (legal) T.B.A. sourced primarily from the Singerriedel. Nutmeg-tinged, honey-drizzled, subtly caramelized apricot preserves are mingled slightly awkwardly with bright lemon citricity on an at once creamily viscous and slightly sharp palate. Chewy fruit skin character and piquancy of fruit pit add a further element of counterpoint as well as invigoration to a long, mouthwatering finish. I suspect this will lose some of its sweet-tart sense of bifurcation with a few years in bottle. Certainly this bottling (consisting of 1,000 500 ml. bottles) makes an impressively brash statement, and I suspect it will be worth following for 15-20 years. Given the penchant at this address for late harvest; considerable skin contact; and must aeration, I was not surprised to learn from Franz Hirtzberger Junior that only their Riesling Federspiel had been at all de-acidified. “If there’d been even a bit more hanging out there though,” he notes “then we wouldn’t have made it” – i.e. acheived ripe grapes. “We learned our lesson from 1996,” as Hirtzberger Senior saw it, namely not to harvest – despite ongoing crop loss and fear of ignoble rot (though in this case that didn’t materialize) – until the acids finally began to diminish and the skins to properly ripen. Importer: Vin Divino, Chicago, IL; tel. (773) 334-6700
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