2010 Brauneberger Juffer Trockenbeerenauslese

The Fritz Haag 2010 Braunebeger Juffer Riesling Trockenbeerenauslese evinces an especially polished, oleaginously glycerin-rich texture, allying near-implosive concentration of bright fresh citrus, apple jelly, and pit fruit essences with intriguingly diverse manifestations of noble rot – ranging from white truffle through faintly stale white bread, honey, cinnamon, and ginger – as well as alkaline, wet stone, and mouthwateringly saline mineral nuances whose presence is rare for a wine so nobly ripe. There is almost weightless levity to this strikingly penetrating, long-finishing elixir and I imagine it will dazzle for at least a half century. Incidentally, this lot of 105 liters was not earmarked for auction, as Wilhelm and Oliver Haag wanted to take advantage – as they have on occasion before, too – of their being two T.B.A.s to make one of them at least a little more widely and affordably available. “You had to wait to pick,” comments Oliver Haag picked, “but not too late. Because after the end of October we had more rain, and by then the stems weren’t just ripe but just about shot (fertig), so that the grapes were literally hanging by a thin thread.” Different degrees of double-salt de-acidification were essayed (always on must), frequently only on certain lots of an eventual blend; but of the unabashedly residually sweet bottlings, Haag insists that only the Kabinett reflected a significant degree of de-acidification. Haag in my view quite correctly characterizes his generic bottlings as most illustrative of the vintage’s challenges and his selectively-picked residually sweet wines as being above-average ... “average” at this address, of course, having over the past several decades designated a very high quality indeed. “There were a lot of tough decisions to be made this year,” he relates. “Should we harvest this parcel or that? Pick now or later?” I share Haag’s opinion that as a group these wines will need longer than usual in bottle to really show their stuff. Importer: Rudi Wiest, Cellars International, Carlsbad, CA; tel. ( 800) 596-9463