2011 Piesporter Goldtropfchen Beerenauslese

Adam’s and Haart’s 2011 Piesporter Goldtropfchen Riesling Beerenauslese began life as a selection in their old, terraced vines for Auslese, but after the fruit got to the winery it looked so lovely already that they decided on further concentrating by picking-out more of the green-gold fruit. “It’s sometimes maintained that botrytis falsifies or covers-over terroir,” observes Adam, “but these two wines (the Dhronhofberger B.A. being the other) are almost the same in starting point ...” and you can certainly taste dramatic differences of a sort familiar from non-botrytized representatives of these sites. Citrus oils and distilled-strength mirabelle and herbal-floral essences, with hints of white raisin, turn the head from the glass, prickly lemon rind and volatile aspects of distilled fruit serving for considerable aromatic pungency. Yet there is a remarkable creaminess of texture and vividly honeyed overlay here, to which pink grapefruit and fresh mirabelle lend a layer of unexpected primary juiciness in a prodigiously prolonged, oscillating, practically levitating finish. This should continue to amaze over the next three or four decades. In commencing his tenth harvest on October 1, Andreas Adam was setting a record. “But it was good I did,” he notes, adding that “early in the month we picked exclusively for Kabinett and Qualitatswein. We were in shorts and tee shirts. It was 28 degrees (82 F.) and we only picked in the morning. But by the time we finished on November 1, we were all in heavy jackets.” Mid-October brought some fine botrytis that Adam wasted no time in picking-out and sorting for small volumes of nobly sweet elixirs, the culmination of which is a 280 Oechsle T.B.A. that was not finished fermenting yet last autumn. “Honestly, I had some anxiety as fruit was coming in,” he confesses, “because there was really a large volume of grapes. I can tell you, our cellar was full. What we changed in terms of cellar technique in 2011,” he explains, “is that we didn’t permit any skin contact, didn’t even crush, but instead pressed (whole clusters) directly, like for Champagne.” Despite his success in 2011, the period of elevage was beyond merely stressful for Adam, as his cellar was shockingly vandalized right after his principal, March bottling, and his top dry wines (which he refers to as Grosse Gewachse) along with the barrels that held them, were contaminated and ruined. But speaking of barrels, Adam also got lucky in that respect last year, tapping a cache of impeccably-kept Fuder from a retiring grower. These will definitely come in handy, since in addition to recent plantings (some, sadly, lost to a deep February, 2012 chill), Adam continues to add parcels – for a total of nearly three dozen now – provided they possess old vines and/or outstanding exposure. He doesn’t want to get so big that a hands-on approach is precluded, but his Geisenheim-trained sister will soon join him full-time, and he says he’ll meet the problem of too many superb old vineyard parcels and the need to jettison something less good when and if he comes to it. Speaking of March bottling, you can see from my notes that no matter how much sense it makes – indeed, how true it may be in many such instances – to say that extended lees contact and late bottling were critical to conveying to 2011s the necessary structure and complexity, Adam’s collection is a deliciously definitive if gentle counterexample. He has always been at pains to retain healthy lees, but captured fantastic results bottling after barely five months. Importer: Terry Theise Estate Selections, imported by Michael Skurnik Wines, Inc., Syosset, NY; tel. (516) 677-9300