Weingut Ratzenberger Bacharacher Wolfshohle Riesling Spatlese, Mittelrhein, Germany

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Site-typically smoky overtones to ripe pear and persimmon fruit carry onto the rather prickly, spiny palate of Ratzenberger’s 2010 Bacharacher Wolfshohle Riesling Spatlese, another of this vintage’s wines whose tension is presently sweet-sour, if undeniably invigorating. That said, I have the impression that a sense of juicy succulence is trying to more generously emerge, and in the department of minerals, heaven knows the sense of crushed stone suffusion and peat on exhibit here is formidably persistent. Give this another year to sort itself out, and I don’t doubt that in one stylistic way or another, this will remain vigorous for 15 or more. I tasted from 2010 the smallest Ratzenberger line-up I could recall, due to the facts that fewer wines were bottled; the Norwegians had purchased a Wolfshohle Auslese without remainder; and the vintage’s two Grosse Gewachse were still fermenting at the time of my September visit. (I did taste the cloudy, leesy, still-embryonic St. Jost and found it formidably dense, pithy, and citric.) “We hadn’t de-acidified in more than twenty years,” claims the younger Jochen Ratzenberger, “but anybody who says they didn’t this year is lying.” He calls it “a hard autumn” with picking and pressing so onerous and time-consuming that “we were in the cellar until two and three every morning and in the end there was little to show for it. I don’t want to go through anything like it again soon.” The total volume was but half of a normal crop, with quantities at the Q.b.A. and Kabinett levels confined to what was felt to be the commercially requisite minimum. Fermentations were sluggish - sometimes kicking into malo -and for that reason even the lighter wines weren’t bottled until July. “You couldn’t do anything by rote, but had to keep tasting every lot as it evolved and each was different from the next,” adds Ratzenberger, who reports that in the best instances malic and tartaric acid levels were about equal by the time of picking.Imported by Sussex Wine Merchants, Moorestown, NJ; tel. (856) 608-9644

Rhubarb, pineapple, and purple plum make for a bracing and invigoratingly tart cast to Ratzenberger’s 2009 Bacharacher Wolfshohle Riesling Spatlese and collide with considerable residual sugar for a tense and remarkable un-sweet overall impression. Yeasty overtones reinforce the sense of an awkwardly adolescent wine, but one which at only 8% alcohol is certainly strikingly delicate. Like this year’s “Caspar R” bottling, there is high and extremely efficacious acidity here that makes for a positively blazing intensity, as well as a persistent undertone of wet stone after the fruit has done raging in the finish. I expect this electrically energetic Riesling will be worth following for a quarter century and have many more expressive days than the one on which I tasted it.The two Jochen Ratzenbergers began picking early in October and were done by the end of that month, with – to the extent that I could assess them – consistently fine results. The collection included only a single botrytis wine, a Wolfshohle Auslese that had received some special press recognition in Germany very early, on account of which the father-son team claimed not to have even a single bottle to show me. What was to have been this year’s Bacharacher Posten Spatlese halbtrocken resolutely stopped fermenting with 30 grams of residual sugar; and I can’t offer a note on the results, because some Swiss merchant had bought every last bottle from Ratzenbergers. The 180 liters of Ratzenberger 2009 Kloster Furstental Eiswein had not nearly finished fermenting when I tasted it, but even in its leesy, cloudy, and still-active state it was clear that this would become an impressively concentrated libation. (It started life at 210 Oechsle and at the steady fermentative tempo which it had exhibited through September, was expected to officially become wine by last Christmas – though when it would be deemed “finished” was anybody’s guess.) Speaking of which, Ratzenbergers have just taken over some additional acreage in the Kloster Furstental, which in future might result in other single-vineyard bottlings from that site. “We couldn’t take all of the acreage that was offered,” relates the younger Jochen Ratzenberger, “but we took what we could handle. We want to do our part to see that this amazing steep site remains planted.” The absence of suggested retail pricing for many Ratzenberger wines I review could, I decided, use some explanation. By arrangement with their importers – as a survey of the U.S. marketplace confirms – only their lightest-weight wines are released by the Ratzenbergers in the year following their bottling (and even then, not their sweeter Kabinett from the St. Jost). But as wines with bottle age are released, Spatlesen have tended lately to sell in the $30 retail range; Auslesen and Grosse Gewachse in the $45-50 retail range, confirming Ratzenberger Rieslings as superb values.Imported by Sussex Wine Merchants, Moorestown, NJ; tel. (856) 608 9644

The 2008 Bacharacher Wolfshohle Riesling Spatlese reflects really tiny, meager clusters – like last year’s – says the younger Jochen Ratzenberger, so that it was harvested at high, complete ripeness already the 20th of October, at the beginning of the estate’s Riesling harvest. There is a penetration and concentration of lemon and grapefruit, delightfully laced with bitter-sweet, buddleia- and iris-like inner-mouth perfume. The texture is flatteringly glossy – almost creamy – and at the same time there is energy, cut, and brightness. Alkaline, stony, and saline mineral accumulations provide contrast to the wine’s lush fruit, and both carry into a finish of oscillating dynamic. This comes from right behind the Ratzenbergers’ house, cheek by jowl with the vines that inform their Grosses Gewachs, “but there’s no way you can use this fruit for Grosses Gewachs,” explains the younger Ratzenberger. “Those tiny, green-gold berries are too high both in sugar and acidity.” And those implosively-concentrated berries engender the sort of fusion reaction that takes place in your mouth, drawing so much saliva you’ll need to chase the wine with water. Put this on your short-list (it hasn’t been priced or arrived stateside yet) and feel free to follow some for a quarter century! When you taste a collection like this year’s from the two Jochen Ratzenbergers, you have to wonder why their wines’ consistent quality; track record for aging; and frequently stellar performances do not make this one of the most talked-about estates in Germany. (Maybe I shouldn’t wish that on us!) In fact, they are quite well-respected at home, but I think there is a certain snobbishness that rebounds against even the best Mittelrhein Riesling because this region’s precious half-timbered villages and crenellated slopes spell “tourist country” to most German wine lovers.Importer: Sussex Wine Merchants, Moorestown, NJ; tel. (856) 608-9644

White peach, elderberry-, quince, and musk on the nose of the Ratzenberger 2007 Bacharacher Wolfshohle Riesling Spatlese lead to a gorgeous, improbable palate alliance of freshness with creaminess and brightness with buoyancy and a finish of palate staining intensity and lip-smacking, tongue-tingling tangerine, peach, salt, and tart black fruits. This came from a relatively recently-acquired parcel with old vines deeply-colored berries, and tiny clusters, which this year they did not even attempt to thin-out. Jochen Ratzenberger Jr. expressed delight with his 2007s, and even though I’m straining to recollect a vintage with which he wasn’t pleased, the truth is, he and his father comprise one of the most consistently high-performance teams in German viticulture, and their 2007 collection is consistently impressive. Both of the Ratzenbergers’ 2007 vintage Grosse Gewachse – in what has been fairly typical behavior – finished fermenting only in mid-August, and were immediately bottled with barely enough time to appear at the annual Berlin Presentation of Germany’s collective wines in this genreImported by Sussex Wine Merchants, Moorestown, NJ; tel. (856) 608 9644