2011 Forster Kirchenstück Riesling QbA trocken Edition GC

It almost seems as though there has been a role-reversal this vintage at Burklin-Wolf, as their Jesuitengarten displayed much of the decadence and animality I associate with Kirchenstuck, while a 2011 Forster Kirchenstuck Riesling trocken GC proves surprisingly herbal and pungent as well as brightly citric. At 13% alcohol, it’s also – contrary to what I’d expect from this site – lower in alcohol than other wines of its collection. The decadence here is by way of faded iris and lily-of-the-valley and the animality by way of mouthwatering urchin roe shading toward a sweet-saline and otherwise mineral savor. Black tea smokiness, bite of white pepper, crushed stone and sizzling lemon rind combine for a piquantly gripping though still also refreshing finish. This should merit following through at least 2022 and hopefully well beyond. In August, 2012, Fritz Knorr – cellarmaster at Burklin-Wolf since 1990; in which capacity, incredibly, he was preceded by his father, grandfather and great grandfather! – died of a heart attack while on holiday. (His father had died under eerily similarly circumstances not to mention equally prematurely.) But Knorr had begun in 2010 grooming a very young successor, Italian-born Nicola Libelli, who is, amazingly, in charge of a cellar team as young, or younger, than his 27 years. (Alexander Strohschneider continues to take the lead in this estate’s biodynamically farmed vineyards.) Picking here in 2011 stretched from mid-September to October 8. That their 2011s were often so citric – and, at the low end of their price scale, almost stridently bright (with analytical acid levels to match) – amazed me, given the nature of this vintage and Burklin’s presumed unwillingness to acidify. A few lots were bottled already in winter – though seemingly without sacrificing quality – and the “grand cru” wines in July. If the 2011s here displayed unusual animation and brightness for their vintage, the 2010s – after slight disappointment in the two lower-level wines that were de-acidified and in a couple of the “PC” bottlings – managed to buffer out their high acids and achieve immediately engaging complexity without the austerity that characterizes so many dry Pfalz Rieslings of that vintage. Alcohol hovers around 13% in all of these 2010s so in that sense the “PC”s cannot be called lighter. Yet I find them out-performing in aggregate the “GC”s much in the way that a couple of instances a 2010 collection’s lighter wines out-performed its Grosse Gewachse. This left me wondering whether despite the challenge to sheer ripening of Riesling fruit in this vintage, the warmest and traditionally best sites were often not for some reason privileged. The 2010 vintage “PC” wines were not bottled until the end of June – several weeks later than usual at this address, though entirely consistent with the late harvest; whereas the “GC” wines were bottled in July as usual, lest they be in a state of shock when the annual flurry of late-summer presentations comes ‘round. Especially in 2011, this estate has once-again demonstrated that it is among the half dozen or so most consistently successful in Germany at rendering well-balanced, completely dry Rieslings capable of dancing, not to mention of distinctively evoking the top Pfalz vineyards in which they grew. Christopher Cannan Europvin Selections (various importers), Bordeaux; fax 001-33-5 57-87-43-22