The sweet 2006 Riesling Auslese Schimbock represents the botrytis fruit culled to make possible the other two pickings of this site. Vollenweider’s intent is not to employ the so-called Pradikat terms on the labels of this wine, but in the present instance, not only would it seem almost deceptive not to call something this sweet and botrytized “Auslese,” it also required a level of sulfur that the law permits only for Auslese and higher predicates. In keeping with a back-to-the-future aspect of this new project, Vollenweider utilized an old basket press and then as much as possible left this wine to its own devices. There is a faintly but not unpleasantly oxidative aura about the nose, along with suggestions of caramelized peach, dried apricot, white raisin, and nut brittle. This impressively dense and as yet somewhat inscrutable Auslese needs a lot of time to as it were burn through its sugar, and I do not want to predict its evolution. Furthermore, Vollenweider has no intention of bottling Schimbock Riesling along these lines unless it again becomes necessary to weed out botrytis. “We started picking immediately after the October 3rd rain, and then under high pressure,” relates Daniel Vollenweider. Already then, there was little to be harvested below Auslese, not surprising considering the general trends this vintage and the fact that Vollenweider, as a friend to botryits in normal times, never sprays to keep it at bay. But in a departure from the norm, one cask had reached ten grams of residual sugar by the end of last summer and Vollenweider decided he might as well taste what a truly dry Wolfer Goldgrube Spatlese would be like! (I have not connected with the bottled wine.) A second major vineyard reclamation project in the Schimbock – a once-renowed riverside parcel within today’s Trabener Wurzgarten – is where Vollenweider intends to specialize in dry Riesling.Importer: Vineyard Research, Inc., Lunenburg, MA tel. 617 686 8052; Ewald Moseler Selections, Portland OR tel. 888 274 4312; also A Bill Mayer Age of Riesling Selection Imported by Valley View Wine Sales, Glen Ellen, CA; tel. (510) 549-2444
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