Weingut Daniel Vollenweider Wolfer Goldgrube Riesling Beerenauslese, Mosel, Germany

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Mirabelle and white peach preserves; caramel and Demararra; freshly baked bread and white truffle … the 2009 Wolfer Goldgrube Riesling Beerenauslese smells superbly complex and enticing. In the mouth, creaminess and weightless delicacy as well as myriad, nuanced flavor details – including floral essences and brown spices as well as pit fruit essences – reveal the remarkable subtlety, levity, textural allure, and shimmering complexity of an elixir of which around 900 bottles were produced. Unlike in so many instances in this vintage, here the Beerenauslese is even more refined as well as persistent than the corresponding gold capsule Auslese, even if the latter’s particular savor and mineral dimension is unequalled. Regular followers of Daniel Vollenweider’s wines (for more general information about which consult my many previous reports) will note several changes with vintage 2009. The volume of dry wines has increased, because as he has expanded his acreage, he needs to generate more business from inside Germany. There is an absence of wine in the interim “feinherb” range, but that, Vollenweider assures me, is merely a vintage aberration: he had so few musts in 2009 that in his view stood any chance of fermenting successfully below 60 or more grams of residual sugar that he needed to encourage those he did have to cross the threshold into trocken (read: “marketable-inside-Germany”) territory. The ban on pre-1971 vineyard names being selectively enforced by the controlling authorities, and the name of one of those vineyards most dear to him, namely “Reiler,” also being the same as the adjectival form on labels of nearby wine village Reil, Vollenweider has decided to banish from his price list and bottles any vineyard identifications within the Goldgrube. He bottled his sweet wines already in April, save for a mere 20 liters of potential T.B.A. that were still fermenting. That Vollenweider is happy to take his chances in such low-volume, high-Oechsle circumstances rather than cautiously blending-away the sluggishly-fermenting must was reinforced by a taste from bottle of his would-be 2005 T.B.A., a strikingly Eszencia-like if almost too-sweet, 4% alcohol non-wine of which there were 50 liters on whose continued fermentation he finally gave up, and on which I omit further enticing details, since it cannot be commercialized.Importers include Vineyard Research, Inc., Lunenburg, MA; tel. 617 686 8052; Ewald Moseler Selections, Portland OR; tel. 888 274 4312; A Bill Mayer Age of Riesling Selection Imported by Valley View Wine Sales, Glen Ellen, CA; tel. (510) 549 2444

The 2006 Wolfer Goldgrube Riesling Beerenauslese represents a mere 120 liters of botrytis essence – although there is a T.B.A. that was still fermenting at the end of last summer and which I have not yet tasted. Prickly, pungent lemon zest and spice mingle with honey and white raisin in the nose. Thick in texture and loading the palate with caramel, honey, apple jelly, and peach preserves, what invigoration it offers is by way of faint salinity, but refreshment is not this wine’s destiny. Admirable purity of botrytis and flamboyant richness this certainly has, as well as that uncanny juxtaposition of viscosity and delicacy that this vintage is especially adept at mustering. But for now it’s probably hiding more complexity that it’s showing, and like so many wines in Vollenweider’s collection needs to work through a huge load of residual sugar. In theory one would have to revisit this in a few years – possibly quite a few, but it will take 20 years to shed significant sense of sweetness and well might keep for twice that long.“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