2007 Kiedricher Grafenberg Trockenbeerenauslese

Weil’s 2007 Kiedricher Grafenberg Riesling Trockenbeerenauslese shares a deep, reddish-amber color with its 2006 predecessor. As with the corresponding Turmberg, high-toned, spirituous notes inform the nose, along with dried cherry, apricot and date; candied blood orange; and white raisin. Creamy and viscous yet with an almost eerie sense of levitation on the palate, this elixir’s persistently invigorating sense of bright citrus offers a striking but not discordant counterpoint to its creaminess and its faintly oxidative aspects. There is more focus and a clearer personality here than in the Turmberg T.B.A., but a bit less intrigue. This certainly looks like a candidate for a half-century or more of cellaring. 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