2010 Wolfer Goldgrube Spatlese

A 2010 Wolfer Goldgrube Riesling Spatlese originates in the section of its Einzellage that has in past years generated a Spatlese gold capsule. The pronounced density here is not just vintage typical but, in Vollenweider’s opinion, reflects this site’s old vines. The prickly bright expression of acidity calls to mind fresh lemon, peach fuzz, and nettle, making for persistence more invigorating than ingratiating. I would want to revisit this in the course of the year, but I have little doubt that it harbors the sheer stamina for two decades of aging. In 2010, Daniel Vollenweider’s suffered roughly a two-thirds crop loss vis-a-vis his normal expectations. Picking of this depleted vintage began already on October 8 and was finished at month’s end. “It wasn’t a year of great phenolic ripeness,” he reports candidly, “and picking decisions were incredibly difficult.” Vollenweider extended skin contact and bottled most of his wines later than usual in order to afford his young wines longer time on their lees. Only a single trocken lot was acid-adjusted, and then merely by one gram, with calcium carbonate. “I would have been happy to let at least some lots – in particular for my dry wine – go through malo,” he remarks, “but my pH levels were so low that there was not a chance of that happening.” Levels of residual sugar are significantly higher in this year’s sweet wines than Vollenweider’s already high norm, but as he asserts “they need this, definitively, to balance out such high acids,” and the net effect is by no means a sweeter taste. Reductive and sulfur-related notes are even a bit more frequently evidence here than one already anticipates at this address, and Vollenweider hypothesizes that the wines’ low pHs led to a temporary accentuation of such traits. Importers include 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