2011 Wehlener Sonnenuhr Auslese (3 star)

“Here comes a jump,” noted Molitor as he poured his 2011 Wehlener Sonnenuhr Riesling Auslese three star – a wine, incidentally, that will definitely be offered by their U.S. importer – and I have to admit to wondering where we could jump to after the remarkable Urziger just tasted. I got my answer in a hurry, and it isn’t merely a jump in Oechsle and botrytis influence that Molitor had in mind! A fascinating amalgam of quinine, green tea, heliotrope, white raisin, maraschino, almond and pistachio extracts rises penetratingly and seductively from the glass, then reconvenes for a palate performance at once creamy, almost buttery in texture and electric in its bright, mouthwatering citricity. White peach syrup, quince preserves, and grapefruit mingle with salted caramel, nut pastes, as well as liqueur-like floral and herbal essences at distilled concentration for which the analogy to Chartreuse is almost insultingly inadequate, against a subtle but insistent background of wet stone, generating a finish whose gorgeously layered, oscillating complexity as well as sheer persistence left my mouth agape and my salivary glands pumping. The purity, levity, and vibrancy on display here are nearly beyond belief. One thousand liters of this incredible, 145 Oechsle libation were picked on multiple occasions between mid-October and mid-November. I imagine it casting a spell for at least the next three decades and probably well beyond. Markus Molitor has finally opened his completely turned-inside-out, re-designed, and spectacularly-equipped and -appointed winery, whose essential working parts, however, were completed just in time to be utilized for the reception, vinification, and maturation of 2011’s harvest. His unique approach to these as well as his ability to juggle enormous acreage and a vast number of individual wines, typically totaling in annual excess of a quarter of a million bottles, have often been the subject of my amazement and my annual reports in these pages, but not only is it clear that the new facilities will enhance his uncanny ability to control so many musts and wines, the results seem already evident in what proved to be the most exciting collection I have yet tasted at this address, and indeed among the most exciting of its vintage anywhere. Even Pinot Blanc wasn’t picked before the second week in October, since small earlier pickings “just to see where we stood,” in Molitor’s words, demonstrated that not only could the harvest wait for cooler weather, but to his lights the grapes weren’t yet physiologically mature. In the end, picking continued well into November. Never one to be concerned whether his dry wines reach legal Trockenheit (or with labeling them to indicate this), Molitor believed that with their low extract, his 2011 Rieslings would be very sensitive to alcoholic heat or harshness and thus – low acidity notwithstanding – needed to be restrained lest they ferment too fast and far. “There wasn’t one botrytis berry here,” he told me again and again, insisting that only with his genuinely sweet three-star Auslesen did noble rot come into play. Not one of those botrytis-influenced Auslesen exceeded seven grams of acidity, which on paper looks like a recipe for disappointment, yet they preserve uncanny freshness and primary juiciness, representing some of the most remarkable wines of their vintage. As explanatory factors, Molitor adduced the overwhelming dominance of more efficacious tartaric over malic acid, and low dry extract and potassium that lift pH and let the acidity shine through relatively un-buffered. Asked how he manages to assemble a cadre of pickers capable of meticulous selection over such vast vineyard acreage, all Molitor will say is “the same people pick year after year; they all learned to do selection from me; and they don’t know how to do it any less well. My colleagues down there in the cellar,” he adds, “have been with me for 25 years, from the first year.” Tragically, Molitor was unable last year to renew a long-term lease on the ancient vines in Niedermenniger Herrenberg that have sourced some of his – and indeed the entire Saar’s – finest Rieslings. But new sources – notably Saarburger Rausch and Ockfener Bockstein from the former Freiherr von Solemacher estate – have been tapped to perpetuate the long-standing bottling here labeled as “Saar Alte Reben.” (Nor has Molitor quit adding net acreage: he picked up vineyards in Kinheim, home to his father’s family, for the first time last year.) I have made frequent mention of Molitor’s T.B.A.s and how they often set German records for must weight, frequency per vintage, and length of fermentative elevage. Prompted partly by the imminent official opening of his new facilities, he had just completed at the time of my visit a massive bottling-run of some two dozen of these from vintage 2009 all the way back to 2003, a couple of which I was able to taste. Nor will 2011 lack for wines of exalted Pradikat – though as my present reviews suggest, any not yet bottled can scarcely prove significantly more profoundly beautiful than some of those I have already tasted. Specifically, a Wehlener, a Graacher, and three Zeltinger “three-star” T.B.A.s, as well as a second Zeltinger Sonnenuhr “three-star” Auslesen of 2011 were still – or just finished – fermenting as of last autumn. And speaking of long elevage, Molitor’s entire, impressive collection of 2009 vintage Pinot Noirs had also only been bottled for two weeks (in annoyingly ostentatious heavy glass, incidentally) when I tasted them in early September. Molitor has happily declared a renewed intention to make the widest possible range of its vast portfolio available through his U.S. importer to any of their interested customers. Accordingly, the estate supplied me with projected U.S. retail prices for all of their wines, only a few of which – most, overtly sweet – are part of their importer’s regular program. (Which few, I have noted within the corresponding tasting note.) For those new to Molitor wines or requiring a refresher, almost all of his top bottlings are labeled with a “Pradikat” regardless of their degree of dryness; and the terms “trocken,” “halbtrocken,” or “feinherb” never appear on a label, so that to tell roughly how a wine will taste you have to attend to the color of its capsule and label. White signifies dry-tasting; green virtually dry or off-dry; and gold sweet, even if sometimes only discreetly so. I include the A.P. (registration) of a wine whenever – but only when – this is required to distinguish it from another otherwise eponymous wine. So, for example, in this unusually ripe and successful vintage Molitor bottled four wines that are “three-star” Zeltinger Sonnenuhr Auslesen: two dry and two sweet, the latter in each pair having been destined for auction; so the A.P.# of all four will be referenced as part of the description in our database. Finally, readers need to bear in mind that the stars appended to Pradikat designations on some Molitor wines represent solely an esoteric internal system of his for grouping them according to must weight. That is, however, the only thing they tell one about the conditions under which the grapes were harvested, and they tell absolutely nothing about how dry or sweet the wines taste. Importer: Schmitt Soehne, Millersville, MD; tel. (410) 729-4083