2008 Kiedricher Grafenberg Beerenauslese

The Weil 2008 Kiedricher Grafenberg Riesling Beerenauslese evinces grilled pineapple and grapefruit, peppermint and heliotrope, along with faint auras of freshly baked bread and white truffle that are more evident as the wine opens to the air. Weil insists that even here – at stellar must weight – there was only a modest amount of botrytis, and the wine’s relatively pale color tends to corroborate that claim. A gaudy richness of honey-glazed pineapple, cinnamon candy, and vanilla cream is backed by enormous sweetness, making for a memorably long and intense but confectionary, sticky finish that lacks – or else has, for now, overwhelmed – any mineral dimension or incipient refreshment. The Beerenauslesen here this year make quite a dramatic contrast with the respective Auslesen, the latter being not only more complex and fun to drink, but also far better exemplifying the vintage’s virtues of levity and vivacity, virtues which – as proven at a few select addresses – are compatible with musts of extraordinary density. No doubt this B.A. will retain stamina for at least three decades, in the course of which a lot might change. Lasting from mid-October to mid-November, the 2008 harvest was relatively early and short by the standards of Weingut Robert Weil, if not by those prevailing in most German Riesling-growing establishments. Wilhelm Weil thought the changing ratio of malic to tartaric acid was critical during October, and that the relative increase in tartaric – and its eventual precipitation in almost unprecedented amounts in cask – is what made possible impeccably-balanced 2008s. “I think,” he asserts, “that the 2008s combine the advantages of 2006 and 2007: the stuffing and energy of 2006 with the purity and elegance of 2007.” Importer: Loosen Brothers, Portland, OR tel. (510) 864-7255