2007 Reichsgraf von Kesselstatt Piesporter Goldtropfchen Riesling Grosses Gewachs

Grapefruit with its zest and black currants with their tart skins lend a piquant as well as site-typical character to Kesselstatt’s 2007 Piesporter Goldtropchen Riesling Grosses Gewachs. This is remarkably plush, creamy, and palpably dense, with enough juice of citrus and berry to retain refreshment, and deep toasted nut and wet stone undertones. I’ve been somewhat resistant to the idea of trocken Riesling from Goldtropfchen, but this one – like the best of Theo Haart’s examples – is an exception. The finish here is sensually satisfying, although its piquancy flirts with outright bitterness. I imagine it could be worth following for 4-5 years, but cannot say that I envision it as a long-keeper. A protracted harvest is almost bound to be especially beneficial for an estate with such enormous and widely-scattered vine acreage as that of von Kesselstatt. The acidity in this year’s collection is almost uniformly ripe, and often noticeably low. As usual, a certain austerity accrues to a fair share of Kesslestatt’s many trocken Rieslings (wines from whose labels the last vestiges of Pradikat designations have now disappeared), but happily, alcoholic heat was scarcely a problem here this year. Interestingly, the Saar wines among these were generally especially successful regardless of style. Annegret Reh’s plan in the Kabinett segment, incidentally, is to eventually eliminate the redundancy of having both feinherb (successors to former halbtrocken) and unabashedly sweet bottlings from a single site, but instead work in the direction of merely discreet – i.e. feinherb – sweetness for most of the estate’s Kabinetts. In a sweet style, the Kesselstatt Kabinetts have consistently represented excellent values with ready market-availability, whereas few of the drier Kabinetts (and virtually none of the estate’s trocken Rieslings) seem to make it to the U.S. Various importers including: P. J. Valckenberg International, Tulsa, OK; tel (918) 622-0424.