2016 Oestricher Lenchen Beerenauslese

This was not picked until the beginning of December – but then at only slightly higher must weight than the corresponding Auslese. “We waited, and waited and waited,” reports Peter Bernhard Kühn, and things didn’t move much analytically speaking, but in terms of aromatics and flavor the two wines are a world apart.” This Beerenauslese represents an unexpected rarefaction and cooling-off (in a wonderful sense) of that Auslese’s blazing sheer intensity, and strongly favors fresh fruits over candied ones. Apricot and tangerine join lemon, pineapple, quince, and white peach familiar to the Auslese, collaborating in an ethereal display of levity and high-toned, perfumed penetration. Creamy yet almost weightlessly delicate, this beauty perpetuates the Auslese’s floral essences of honeysuckle and lily as well as its strikingly briny saline savor, while reintroducing the nut extracts memorably featured in this vintage’s Lenchen Kabinett. There is also a very faint but appealing hint of caramelization. The kaleidoscopic and mouthwatering upshot can scarcely be scrubbed from the palate, and certainly not from one’s memory. In a slight departure from usual practice, after the Kühns racked-off this elixir to curtail its fermentation, they reunited it with its fine lees and didn’t bottle it until August, 2017, just ahead of my visit. (A much more radical departure is represented by the 2015 Beerenauslese Reserve bottled alongside – for more about which consult my introductory text – but which Kühns were not yet ready to let me taste.)