2009 Karthauserhofberg Grosses Gewachs

The 2009 Riesling Karthäuserhofberg 'Grosses Gewächs' shows a deep, clear, ripe and elegant bouquet, with a perfume of crystal and lemon oil. Full-bodied, pure and elegant on the palate, this is a more broad and powerful--though still balanced--well structured Riesling with finesse, but a lack of kicking freshness in the finish. Should be great with shellfish.

Corresponding to his personal perennial favorite style formerly called "Auslese trocken" (although in lean years there was no wine so-named, and in especially ripe vintages an Auslese trocken "S" was also offered), Tyrell's 2009 Eitelsbacher Karthauserhofberg Riesling Grosses Gewachs displays a greenhouse-like amalgam of leafy and flowering things reminiscent of the corresponding dry Kabinett, though here they inform a palate that while cool and juicily honeydew melon-like is also creamy in texture and expansive. Happily, there is no heat or other awkward consequence from the wine's near-12.8% alcohol – which is in any case low by the standards of recent Karthauserhof Auslesen trocken – and while I don't find the fruit character especially colorful, hints of white currant add tartness to a very cool personality, while distinct impressions of wet stone, salinity, and alkalinity add intrigue to a seamless palate impression and a persistently juicy, mouth-watering as well as soothing finish. I expect this to satisfy for the better part of a decade, but confess to having had little opportunity to taste dry Karthauserhof Auslesen older than that, even though I have tasted a couple of well-preserved, at the time more than 30 year old bottlings from the mid '50s which – while clearly much lower in alcohol than today's Auslesen – almost certainly began life below 9 grams residual sugar. 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

Quite closed, delicate notes of exotic fruit. On the palate the fruit is more local, apple and pear, with an almost rasping lemony acidity. Finishes with a tang of fresh apple peel. Definitely racy, quite long. (MS)