The 2006 Bernkastler Badstube Riesling Beerenauslese smells of liqueur-like, jellied, vanilla- and chocolate-covered purple plums and black cherries. The implosive palate concentration though is simply beyond “l(fā)iqueur-like” and into realms I can’t recall. Strong brown spices, herbal concentrates add complexity and a buttery, creamy texture does not prevent this wine from preserving the most remarkable clarity of jellied pit fruit concentration, photo-electric brilliance of fruit acids lighting the way to an endless finish. It may not be the most complex Beerenauslese today, but give it time! Is this a “fifty year” wine ... “seventy”...? All that matters is to decide whether you want to greedily take it with you to the grave or pass some on. The Germans have an expression: “So was kurz vorm Sterben” – “to experience such a thing shorly before dying.” This wine is one of those things. The harvest almost filled the month of October, but by the standards of this large estate with holdings stretching across four communes, that is (in Johannes Selbach’s words) “super quick” and volume was down 30% from the already small 2005 harvest. Musts were sometimes fined with bentonite but never with charcoal. “This is my year of superlatives,” says Selbach. “When I think of my children and their children, and about a wine one could open in a hundred years and say ‘Wow!’ one dreams of wines from great historical vintages like 1911, 1921, 1953 ... and that in one’s own lifetime one might experience and harvest wines that would number among them. For me, that’s 2006.” Selbach took an interest in Pinot Blanc for sparkling wine, since there are some promising old vines in cooler side locations of Zeltingen’s Schlossberg. But he now thinks the fruit will probably always be too ripe for that purpose, whereas the still results are themselves promising.There are a few regional importers of certain Selbach wines, but the majority (and those whose prices are noted above) are Terry Theise Estate Selections, imported by Michael Skurnik Wines, Inc., Syosset, NY; tel (516) 677-9300