Toasted nuts and peach kernel lend Gies-Duppel’s 2009 Birkweiler Kastanienbusch Weiser Burgunder trocken a pronounced piquancy that persists with impressive tenacity. With amplitude and textural richness underscored by 14% alcohol, this is in a style of Pinot Blanc much favored in the Pfalz but which I find somewhat lacking in charm. A small portion of this wine was raised in barrique, partly explaining the reinforcement of its toasty, nutty aspects. I would plan on serving it over the next couple of 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