Apple, grapefruit, and (surprisingly but strikingly) white asparagus mark the nose of Gies-Duppel’s 2009 Birkweiler Mandelberg Weiser Burgunder trocken, then follow onto a waxy, well-concentrated palate whose slightly higher alcohol than its “Calcit” counterpart makes for greater amplitude, though the almond-, apple pip-, salt-, and grapefruit rind-tinged finish here lacks the sheer juiciness of its ostensibly lesser Pinot Blanc sibling. This should be worth following for at least 3-4 years. Volker Gies – for more about whose vineyards and methods consult my coverage in issue 185 –continues to display impressive talent and is happily receiving increasing recognition inside Germany. Hopefully wider U.S. distribution of this estate’s wines will follow. Like other of the best 2009 vintage Rieslings from Gies’s corner of the southern Pfalz, his harbor highly efficacious acidity and high energy of a sort that can by no means be taken for granted – not even on the Mosel! – in this vintage (and indeed, is almost entirely absent in the Rieslings from further south in Alsace). I have been quite keen on Gies’s Pinot Blancs, but found them (as well as his Pinot Gris) – despite ample ripeness – marginally disappointing from 2009, a circumstance familiar from this vintage in neighboring Alsace.Importer: Tartaglione Fine Wines, San Francisco, CA; tel. (415) 216-3356