2009 Eitelsbacher Karthauserhofberg Eiswein 52

The 2009 Eitelsbacher Karthauserhofberg Riesling Eiswein Nr. 52 –Tyrell's sole Eiswein bottling of the vintage, and his opinion his best-ever – smells of glazed pineapple; candied pink grapefruit; and brown-spiced, pickled watermelon rind, all accompanied by a whiff of raw mushroom. Mixed messages are delivered of, on the one hand caramel, white raisin, honey, and quince preserves that point toward botrytis; and, on the other, persistent herbal liqueur, pineapple and grapefruit whose vividness is enhanced by frost and point toward the presence of still green-gold berries. Polished, viscous and almost smothered by its sheer sweetness (small wonder, given 302 grams residual sugar!), this conveys an impressive sense of layering but doesn't mange to transport much sense of dynamic complexity or brightness in its finish. Admittedly, what we have here is an embryo, and I imagine the wine will remain vital for at least 20 years, though that will scarcely make a dent in its sense of sweetness. "Ordinarily," remarks Tyrell, "I tell my customers as well as chefs and sommeliers 'Don't serve my Eiswein with dessert!' but in this instance I think it would work." Christoph Tyrell's and his young cellarmaster Christian Vogt harvested almost throughout the second half of October, with the exception of what was left for a December Eiswein harvest under prolonged frigid conditions that Tyrell described as "unbelievably easy and leisurely … and the best in the history of our estate," an assessment from which there will unsurprisingly be some dissent, starting with that registered in my tasting note! While Tyrell emphasized to me the extent of the October 27 rain on the Ruwer, he reported having brought in 95% of his fruit before then. He has dropped a few wines and tweaked his line-up, more in terms of nomenclature than in any substantive way, in order to more closely conform to the generic-village-cru "pyramid" and attendant conventions envisioned as a classificatory model by the VDP (even though every wine here comes from the family's "great growth" monopole Eitelsbacher Karthauserhofberg). The old Pradikat terms and wine names familiar from the estate will continue to appear on the "official" – otherwise known as "back" – labels, while the new nicknames (or the symbol used by the VDP to designate so-called Erste Lagen or Grosse Gewachse) appear on the colorful neck labels, which as most devotees of German Riesling know, were for most of its twentieth century history the sole labels used by this estate. (Christoph Tyrell's grandfather designed them so that he could cool bottles in the stream that rushes past the estate on its brief journey to join the Ruwer without the labels washing away and turning every party – of which he apparently staged many – into a blind tasting.) Importer: Rudi Wiest, Cellars International, Carlsbad, CA 800 596 9463