2011 Riesling Grand Cru Brand K

Boxler's 2011 Riesling Brand incorporates the fruit from Kirchberg - as did the corresponding 2009 - that is often separately bottled. Thyme and gentian lend aromatic allure. Succulent white peach and Persian melon inform a rich, satin-textured, sappy mid-palate along with liquefied loral perfumes. A crystalline sense of mineral impingement as well as mouthwatering salinity and animated freshness make for a more intriguingly interactive as well as exciting performance than one gets from the corresponding Sommerberg. Rich though this is, and despite its 14% alcohol, this exhibits a genuine sense of lift that fits its persistent florality. Plan to follow it through at least 2020. "I picked all of my grand cru Riesling at the beginning of the 2011 harvest," relates Jean Boxler, "because it was already ripe and I did not want to lose purity or acidity, or to gain alcohol, and I wanted to make the wines as dry as reasonably possible. Normally, letting Riesling hang longer is the right thing, but not in this vintage, as what little I picked later demonstrated. Especially in granite soils, maturation was very rapid. In 2010, by contrast, I picked as late as I possibly could and performed no deacidification. The quality of the acids just kept improving and my foliage was still green through October." Muscat in 2011, incidentally, Boxler says of a grape with which his estate often scores memorably, "got Oechsle but simply lacked fruit," and he blended it away. Like me, Boxler deems his 2010s to be in a different class than his 2011s. "Maybe 2010 will be a bit difficult in its youth for some consumers to appreciate, but for the professional ..." he utters a sigh indicating rapture, and after tasting his collection I know what he meant! While hectoliter per hectare yields in 2010 averaged only in the low twenties, Boxler held onto the reserves he had set aside for the U.S., even as he elected to change importers, so that both his 2010s and his 2011s were shipped after the middle of 2013. Importer: Kermit Lynch Wine Merchant, Berkeley, CA; tel. (510) 524-1524