2007 Kiedricher Grafenberg Spatlese

A striking sense of chalk and salt accompanies white peach and plum in the nose of Weil’s 2007 Kiedricher Grafenberg Spatlese, which saturates the palate with a superb, subtly oily concentration of pit fruits, citrus, and honey. Savory mineral character suggesting shrimp or lobster shell reduction persists all the way through a long finish, with the overall effect being surprisingly similar to that of the 2006 version, but with a degree of mineral-like expression rare for residually sweet Spatlese. But then, sheer density of underlying material, I suspect, explains the degree to which this – more than the corresponding Turmberg – manages to practically cancel out its residual sugar in the finish. This will doubtless be worth following for 15 or more years. Wilhelm Weil has doubled his press capacity after the 2006 experience, and in light of what he sees as an inevitable long-term truncation of the time available to harvest, given ever-earlier picking dates. But be that theory as it may, 2007 offered a full six weeks for the main harvest alone (nine weeks, if one counts “pre-harvest” thinning and Eiswein). The results – predictably, given the track record at this spare-no-expenses estate – were impressive from Q.b.A. to T.B.A., and included a generally better-balanced array of dry wines than 2006 had permitted. Since there are 22,000 and 27,000 bottles each of the two top dry Rieslings here, by the way, it’s not as though they are rare, even though many Grosses Gewachs bottlings – including from large, famous wineries – are produced in tiny amounts. Imported by Rudi Wiest, Cellars International, Carlsbad, CA; tel. (800) 596 9463; beginning in fall, 2009, imported by Loosen Brothers, Portland, OR tel. (510) 864-7255