2006 Kiedricher Grafenberg Auslese

Very very pale gold with a greenish glint. Not very expressive on the nose at the moment but there are hints of spice and pink grapefruit and fresh lemon thyme. Easy-flowing yet rich in the mouth, then fresh slightly salty finish. Very long but not (?yet) as impressive as the rest of the range. (JH)

The 2006 Kiedricher Grafenberg Auslese features malt and caramel to accompany its honey, peach, pineapple, and papaya. Enormously dense, rich, and creamy in texture, it is nevertheless shot through with fresh citrus character, generating a bit of a sweet-sour tug of war for now, but probably beneficial not just to the length of finish today, but for the long run, which in this case ought to mean at least 15-20 years. ||Wilhelm Weil relates that his team (twice the size he would have fielded only a few years ago) harvested for seven weeks without pause, 14-18 hours a day in order to capture the best possible quality from a year that set records in the Rheingau for total heat accumulation, but then of course threw inopportune rain in the vintner’s way. “The critical thing was to retain a reflection of our terroir, but to make use of the opportunity afforded by such precocious ripeness,” he observes. As in so many recent vintages, the Weil estate also benefited from some of the stoniest soils and highest, breeziest exposures in the Rheingau.||Imported by Rudi Wiest, Cellars International, Carlsbad, CA; 800-596-9463 Wine Advocate.October, 2008