2010 Lieser Niederberg Helden Spatlese 9

The delicate Schloss Lieser 2010 Lieser Niederberg Helden Riesling Spatlese comes off like a luscious key lime-chiffon pie glazed with kiwi and pear preserves. Subtly creamy yet insistently and persistently refreshing, it evinces a striking sense of transparency to wet stone, crystalline, and saline notes, a hint of nettle enhancing the sense of enervation and invigoration of the wine’s penetrating finish. Expect the better part of two decades of delight from this. Thomas Haag – who picked into November – is one of those who swears to have only de-acidified (and then as must) a very few lots of lesser wine, by which it transpired that he meant principally material for his generic Q.b.A. and Kabinett trocken bottlings, which I didn’t get chance to taste. But whether or not you’re willing to accept his assertion about (eschewing) de-acidification, this is one of the most successful collections of its vintage, and the already proven ability of wines from this estate to perform a high-sugar, high wire act, having been sorely-tested, has once again been confirmed. “Of course,” notes Haag, “to balance these acids meant high residual sugar and correspondingly low alcohol” – by which he means, even by his standards! (From Niederberg Helden Spatlese “up” in Haag’s collection, the alcohol is a mere 7% – roughly half a degree less than usual at this address – until it drops to the legal limit of 5.5% with the pair of Beerenauslesen.) Long fermentations and extended lees contact were important to achieve balance, Haag opines, especially for his dry wines. “These 2010s as a group are exciting if also highly unusual wines,” he adds, and I couldn’t agree more. (Notice – many of you will breathe a sigh of relief – that in a fortuitous departure from this estate’s norm, there is only one pair of wines that requires you to check A.P.#s in order to disambiguate. Every other wine has its own complete verbal description; what’s more, Thomas Haag continues the practice inaugurated last year of sneaking a wine’s gold capsule status into tiny print right on its label, so there’s no need to ask for a standard unit or take out a tape measure to tell gold capsule from long gold capsule!) Importer: Rudi Wiest, Cellars International, Carlsbad, CA; tel. (800) 596-9463