2011 Immich-Batterieberg Enkircher Ellergrub Riesling

The Immich-Batterieberg 2011 Enkircher Ellergrub Riesling is fascinatingly and alluringly floral, incorporating musky narcissus and peony, chamomile and lavender, as well as sweet scents of honeysuckle and apple blossom. These, along with mint and hints of citrus oils, garland succulently juicy white peach which - like the impression of liquid floral perfume itself - is beautifully underscored by a subtle hint of sweetness from 17 grams of residual sugar on a seductively silken yet invigoratingly juicy palate. A cyanic hint of peach kernel, nutty bitter sweetness of almond, kiss of wet stone, and saliva-drawing salinity help intriguingly extend a buoyant, kaleidoscopically-interactive, and refreshing finish. This beauty should dazzle for at least two decades. Gernot Kollmann picked most of his best parcels in the third week of October, although botrytis pressure forced him to attack some vines earlier. Even with such a relatively late harvest and a vintage this ripe, he has been able to bottle wines with finished alcohol between 12-12.5%, in keeping with a continued goal of achieving levity. Vine age, genetic diversity, and lack of grafts have much to do, in Kollmann's (and many another Mosel vintner's) view, with their fruit ripening at relatively low must weights. These wines display the sort of balance that long-time (and last family) proprietor Georg Immich adored, although I regret that one certainly cannot credit as prophetic his belief that halbtrocken would, before the last century was out, become the sensible and aesthetically sensitive norm among "dry" German Rieslings! (Perhaps one day still, though.) He has managed to secure significant numbers of wholesome used barrels of 300-liter capacity, substituting these increasingly for classic 225-liter barriques; but reports that, sadly, he cannot locate suitable used 500- or 600-liter demi-muids nor, for the time being, afford to introduce newly constructed fuders on the classic Mosel model. (For more on the recent evolution - indeed, veritable resurrection - of this venerable estate, please consult my reports in issues 199 and 192. The first, strikingly delicious Chardonnay-dominated wine has appeared from Weingut Rinke's dramatically-steep and -restored mussel-chalk terraces on the Upper Mosel, a Kollmann project about which I'll write further in future, though that arguably belongs in the context of covering neighboring Luxemburg, or even Champagne.) Imported by Louis/Dressner Selections, New York, NY; tel. (212) 334-8191