Forstmeister Geltz-Zilliken Saarburger Rausch Riesling Kabinett, Mosel, Germany

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From riper raw fruit than the corresponding "village" Kabinett that Zillikens bottled this year from the Rausch, their 2009 Saarburger Rausch Riesling Kabinett harbors (in estate-typical fashion) 73 grams of residual sugar. "The grapes were essentially healthy," explains Hanno Zilliken, "but there were a few berries that had turned brown and begun to get botrytis, and here we left them in to make the wine more complex." Tropical notes of grapefruit and mango join the cherry and peach here, and from the first sip my salivary glands kicked in as they hadn't since several wines back in this year's line-up while savoring the feinherb and "Diabas" bottlings. Subtle smokiness and salinity thought by many observers (including this one) to be somehow related to the presence of diabase and quartzite respectively offer intriguing counterpoint for the fruit on a subtly creamy, irresistibly juicy, and delicately buoyant palate, while inner-mouth perfume of honeysuckle and iris waft through to the wine's long, luscious, lip licking finish. This will dazzle for two decades, and what an amazing value it represents! Hanno and daughter Dorothee Zilliken have reorganized and renamed much of their wine portfolio to conform to the prevailing – or at least, the officially professed – and allegedly Burgundian three-tier model of the VDP, whereby, inter alia, names of "grand crus" (such as in this instance Rausch) appear only on the labels of highly selected wines, which this year include for the first time here a Grosses Gewachs. Put another way, fans of Zilliken wines who prefer – or can only afford – to purchase wines at the lower range of the Oechsle spectrum will henceforth be drinking considerable amounts of Saarburger Rausch that is no longer labeled as such. The overall share of legally trocken wine at this address has been considerably extended, and as the Zillikens pointed out, despite recession, their wines – including the least expensive among them – have never sold out more quickly than they did this year, one in which the family's relatively small volume of residually sweet wine approaches stellar qualities. The harvest here lasted the second half of October and Dorothee Zilliken reported being quite relieved to have finished in view of early November rains, though these did not deter – or perhaps didn't so greatly affect – many of her neighbors, who stretched things out. Hanno Zilliken opined that "after the middle of October" – with no foliage left on the vines – "no more assimilation was possible; and after the rain in November the sugars would have been washed out." In consequence – and in a departure from usual practice – the Zillikens left no grapes hanging for Eiswein. Importer: Rudi Wiest, Cellars International, Carlsbad, CA 800 596 9463

At 7.5% alcohol and more than 60 grams of residual sugar, Zilliken’s 2008 Saarburger Rausch Riesling Kabinett is in the mold long familiar for this bottling and by no means tastes excessively sweet. Lime, orange, grapefruit, and cherry dominate this luscious, light Riesling of rapier length, enticing invigoration, and consummate refreshment, and one whose satiny texture and sense of saline, stony minerality become more evident after you give it some time to open-up and warm-up. Hanno Zilliken and his daughter Dorothee – who is playing an every-increasing role here – now have a spacious and sophisticated new gravity-fed cuverie and reception area behind the family house and next to the deep, old barrel cellar, replacing the cramped facilities in which three generations have worked ever since the family’s original above-ground structure and everything around it were flattened by Allied bombs during the Second World War. Like a number of his neighbors, Zilliken – who compares 2008 with 1988 – began picking already in mid-October, but set a leisurely pace and did not finish for a month. “Time in cask was really critical for the evolution of the acids,” he says, and one perceives that particularly in his successful dry bottlings of the vintage. As my detailed notes explain, the longstanding traditional trio of Kabinetts at this address – one trocken from the Rausch and one each in identically high residual sugar style from the Bockstein and Rausch – has been expanded this year into a range at different levels of residual sugar. Importer: Rudi Wiest, Cellars International, Carlsbad, CA 800 596 9463