Lemon blossom and mirabelle on the nose of Kuhling-Gillot’s 2008 Oppenheimer Sacktrager Riesling Grosses Gewachs lead to a palate uncannily combining creaminess and refreshment, as well as displaying the open, buoyant personality of which this vintage is capable, and that in this instance completely belies the wine’s 13.5% alcohol. Chalky, stony and faintly apple pip notes lend a certain austerity to the undeniably long finish, but don’t disturb the overall impression of elegance which I suspect will persist for at least 5-6 years. Carolin Gillot – for more about whose estate see my report in issue 185 – professes the importance of spontaneous fermentations to retain refinement in her relatively warm sites as well as – in the ideal case – to render less efficient the conversion of sugar to alcohol. As a measure of Gillot’s recent commercial success and excellent press within Germany, not a single bottle of her village-level Riesling from Oppenheim could be found for me to taste – which was last September – and she reported that the last large order had had to be shorted. Given the quality of this latest collection, things are unlikely to get better in regard to the demand-supply ratio!Importer: Domaine Select Wine Estates, New York, NY; tel. (212) 279-0799

High-toned pit fruit distillate notes rise from the glass of Kuhling-Gillot’s 2007 Oppenheimer Sacktrager Riesling Grosses Gewachs, which shows its 13.5% alcohol in a bit of awkward warmth and roughness. Its ripe pit fruit tinged with toasted cornmeal, pit bitterness and chalky, stony notes combines with the wine’s alcoholic effect to make for a rather austere mouthful. That said, this is impressively opulent and texturally interesting, combining graininess with an oily, glycerin-rich slick. It should be worth following for at least 4-6 years. 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