2011 Erdener Treppchen Auslese

With a deep but green-gold color that testifies – as does Molitor himself – to the absence of botrytis from its raw ingredients, the 2011 Erdener Treppchen Riesling Auslese two star smells pungently of struck flint, smoke, and quarry dust. Candied grapefruit rind, pineapple close to its core, and caramelized parsnip combine for a palate impression as tactilely sizzling as the wine’s aroma was pungent, and guaranteeing more than enough overall piquancy to push back against what is only a subtle sense of sweetness. This isn’t where to look in the present collection for delicacy, interplay, or the maximum in sheer juiciness, but there is admirable complexity, invigoration and grip that should serve for at least 12-15 years of satisfaction. Markus Molitor has finally opened his completely turned-inside-out, re-designed, and spectacularly-equipped and -appointed winery, whose essential working parts, however, were completed just in time to be utilized for the reception, vinification, and maturation of 2011’s harvest. His unique approach to these as well as his ability to juggle enormous acreage and a vast number of individual wines, typically totaling in annual excess of a quarter of a million bottles, have often been the subject of my amazement and my annual reports in these pages, but not only is it clear that the new facilities will enhance his uncanny ability to control so many musts and wines, the results seem already evident in what proved to be the most exciting collection I have yet tasted at this address, and indeed among the most exciting of its vintage anywhere. Even Pinot Blanc wasn’t picked before the second week in October, since small earlier pickings “just to see where we stood,” in Molitor’s words, demonstrated that not only could the harvest wait for cooler weather, but to his lights the grapes weren’t yet physiologically mature. In the end, picking continued well into November. Never one to be concerned whether his dry wines reach legal Trockenheit (or with labeling them to indicate this), Molitor believed that with their low extract, his 2011 Rieslings would be very sensitive to alcoholic heat or harshness and thus – low acidity notwithstanding – needed to be restrained lest they ferment too fast and far. “There wasn’t one botrytis berry here,” he told me again and again, insisting that only with his genuinely sweet three-star Auslesen did noble rot come into play. Not one of those botrytis-influenced Auslesen exceeded seven grams of acidity, which on paper looks like a recipe for disappointment, yet they preserve uncanny freshness and primary juiciness, representing some of the most remarkable wines of their vintage. As explanatory factors, Molitor adduced the overwhelming dominance of more efficacious tartaric over malic acid, and low dry extract and potassium that lift pH and let the acidity shine through relatively un-buffered. Asked how he manages to assemble a cadre of pickers capable of meticulous selection over such vast vineyard acreage, all Molitor will say is “the same people pick year after year; they all learned to do selection from me; and they don’t know how to do it any less well. My colleagues down there in the cellar,” he adds, “have been with me for 25 years, from the first year.” Tragically, Molitor was unable last year to renew a long-term lease on the ancient vines in Niedermenniger Herrenberg that have sourced some of his – and indeed the entire Saar’s – finest Rieslings. But new sources – notably Saarburger Rausch and Ockfener Bockstein from the former Freiherr von Solemacher estate – have been tapped to perpetuate the long-standing bottling here labeled as “Saar Alte Reben.” (Nor has Molitor quit adding net acreage: he picked up vineyards in Kinheim, home to his father’s family, for the first time last year.) I have made frequent mention of Molitor’s T.B.A.s and how they often set German records for must weight, frequency per vintage, and length of fermentative elevage. Prompted partly by the imminent official opening of his new facilities, he had just completed at the time of my visit a massive bottling-run of some two dozen of these from vintage 2009 all the way back to 2003, a couple of which I was able to taste. Nor will 2011 lack for wines of exalted Pradikat – though as my present reviews suggest, any not yet bottled can scarcely prove significantly more profoundly beautiful than some of those I have already tasted. Specifically, a Wehlener, a Graacher, and three Zeltinger “three-star” T.B.A.s, as well as a second Zeltinger Sonnenuhr “three-star” Auslesen of 2011 were still – or just finished – fermenting as of last autumn. And speaking of long elevage, Molitor’s entire, impressive collection of 2009 vintage Pinot Noirs had also only been bottled for two weeks (in annoyingly ostentatious heavy glass, incidentally) when I tasted them in early September. Molitor has happily declared a renewed intention to make the widest possible range of its vast portfolio available through his U.S. importer to any of their interested customers. Accordingly, the estate supplied me with projected U.S. retail prices for all of their wines, only a few of which – most, overtly sweet – are part of their importer’s regular program. (Which few, I have noted within the corresponding tasting note.) For those new to Molitor wines or requiring a refresher, almost all of his top bottlings are labeled with a “Pradikat” regardless of their degree of dryness; and the terms “trocken,” “halbtrocken,” or “feinherb” never appear on a label, so that to tell roughly how a wine will taste you have to attend to the color of its capsule and label. White signifies dry-tasting; green virtually dry or off-dry; and gold sweet, even if sometimes only discreetly so. I include the A.P. (registration) of a wine whenever – but only when – this is required to distinguish it from another otherwise eponymous wine. So, for example, in this unusually ripe and successful vintage Molitor bottled four wines that are “three-star” Zeltinger Sonnenuhr Auslesen: two dry and two sweet, the latter in each pair having been destined for auction; so the A.P.# of all four will be referenced as part of the description in our database. Finally, readers need to bear in mind that the stars appended to Pradikat designations on some Molitor wines represent solely an esoteric internal system of his for grouping them according to must weight. That is, however, the only thing they tell one about the conditions under which the grapes were harvested, and they tell absolutely nothing about how dry or sweet the wines taste. Importer: Schmitt Soehne, Millersville, MD; tel. (410) 729-4083