2011 Piesporter Goldtropfchen Auslese

Not everything that they harvested this year as Auslese in Goldtropfchen, notes Johannes Haart, will have ended up in bottle, as some lots were sold-off in bulk and what remained informs a single bottling of 2011 Piesporter Goldtropfchen Riesling Auslese. Musk and caramel, cassis and candied pink grapefruit rind announce the exotic, strongly-botrytized and sweetly ripe themes that persist on an expansive and subtly creamy palate. A bottle that had been open a week evinced some welcome counterpoint by way of alkalinity and smoky notes of black tea, and this well-aerated sample also displayed greater clarity in what is, to be sure, a very sweet and effusive yet still satisfyingly juicy and impressively persistent finish. Look for opulent high performance through at least 2030. Theo and Johannes Haart began picking already on September 27 – several days earlier than they had even in 2003. As warm as the weather was in late September, they explained, dropping acidity and the potential for early botrytis – especially in the more water-retentive top sites of Piesport, but also in Wintrich in the aftermath of hail – left them no choice but to start early. “At first we picked nothing but healthy berries,” relates Johannes Haart, “but after three or four days there was botrytis; and three days after that we already had Trockenbeerenauslese.” That said, harvest continued all the way through October in order to optimize the potential of individual sites. But two notable features of this collection – the first analytically verifiable; the second an observation on my part – are that, surprisingly, its wines’ unusually low levels of acidity did not significantly increase under the influence of greater botrytization, and also, their flavor profiles have a lot in common and site-specificity strikes me as significantly less evident than usual. Kabinetts were fermented in stainless steel with watchful cooling because the Haarts were convinced that given the chemistry of their musts and elevated ambient temperatures, fermentations would otherwise have galloped. They bottled most of their 2011 collection in July, a bit later than usual because they believed the young wines definitely gained (and continue to gain after bottling) from aeration. Two different lots of Ohligsberg Trockenbeerenauslese and one of Goldtropfchen were still fermenting when I visited to taste the rest of the Haart’s 2011 collection. Importer: Rudi Wiest, Cellars International, Carlsbad, CA; tel. (800) 596- 9463