2011 Bockenauer Felseneck Spatlese

Luscious nectarine, lime, quince and honeydew melon are tinged with mint and quarry dust on the nose and buoyant, soft, yet infectiously juicy palate of Schafer-Frohlich’s 2011 Bockenauer Felseneck Riesling Spatlese. Like the corresponding Kabinett, this isn’t the last word in complexity, but it’s so succulent, pure, and persistent that it is likely to remain almost irresistible for the next dozen or more years. Tim Frohlich began harvesting not long after the beginning of October, 2011 and finished (with his Grosse Gewachse) by the end of that month, a timetable he had already predicted when I met with him in late August. “Dry conditions and above all the low nighttime temperatures were enormously important in 2011, and distinguished it from other warm, early vintages,” opines Frohlich, adding that “vintage 2003 was the most important of my life, because I learned not to panic but to wait; and those grapes that were harvested latest were the best.” Frohlich reports very little botrytis at any point during his 2011 harvest, so that nobly sweet wines were produced only in unusually small quantities; by dint of especially rigorous selection, and as much from spontaneously shrunken (tiny to begin with), healthy, super-ripe berries. “I had thirty pickers,” relates Frohlich (for more of whose observations consult the general introduction to this report) “twice our normal crew, with six or seven people – ladies who had long fingernails – doing nothing but picking-out raisins.” He’s quick to add that scarce though those overripe or botrytized berries were, even a small number left in the material utilized for a Grosses Gewachs could easily have driven alcohol levels well over Frohlich’s roughly 13% target, to say nothing of possible effects on purity of fruit, precision of flavors, and minerality, all virtues that – like other recent Schaefer-Frohlich collections – these 2011s possess in spades. The fruit that informed this year’s remarkable Schaefer-Frohlich Grosse Gewachse was in his words “tiny, golden yellow, glowing, and knackig” – crunchy, i.e., with skins possessed of the requisite firmness, to capture only the positive aspects of which, he personally manned the presses to insure precise control over every last 2011 lot. “You could get heartburn contemplating spontaneous fermentation in a low-acid vintage like this,” notes Frohlich, who nowadays only rarely resorts to cultured yeasts, “but thankfully, the pH levels were relatively high,” which greatly increases a grower’s margin of safety. Judging by the results, everything went off with nary a hitch! Imported by Rudi Wiest, Cellars International, Carlsbad, CA; tel. 800 596 9463

Gentle white blossom aroma mingles with floral notes and a delicate scent of exotic fruit. On the palate a very juicy acidity moderates the tropical expression. A flinty mineral and a light dusting of spice set mere accents to give top billing to the sweet expression of fruit. Quite approachable already, but with plenty of promise for the patient. (MS)