2009 Graacher Domprobst Spatlese 5

Black tea smokiness, brown spice pungency, and grapefruit and orange citricity in the nose of the Schaefer 2009 Graacher Domprobst Riesling Spatlese A.P. #5 migrate to a palate no less juicy or saturatingly mineral than that of the corresponding A.P. #10. Here is a delicacy, refinement of texture, and shimmering interplay of elements such as no other grape and place on earth can deliver save for Mosel Riesling. I happened to taste this wine with the meticulous German wine writer and unsurpassed trove of Mosel lore Joachim Krieger, who discoursed on the fossil-rich slate prominent in the parcel that informed this beauty. I was for my part thinking of sea creatures some millions of years younger, as subtly sweet salinity of raw scallop and iodine-like bittersweetness of shrimp shell added further allure and intrigue to what is already by any standards a “minerally,” salivary gland-massaging, palate-awakening, and mind-expanding Riesling. Don’t miss savoring this repeatedly over the next 25-30 years (or whatever share of them you anticipate being around)! This, the Schaefers point out, could easily have been their 2009 Grosses Gewachs, had nature not intervened to wind-down the fermentation. Most of the harvest of 2009 here was accomplished during the second half of October. "We'd actually reckoned with an earlier start," remarks Christophe Schaefer, "but although the grapes looked beautiful, when we tasted them we thought, 'no we really need to – and we can – wait.'" "The grapes were very stable," adds Willi Schaefer, "and when we did get botrytis – encouraged by a bit of October rain – it dried up nicely. And when you get this sort of late botrytis, it can really concentrate already high acids." Furthermore, parcels in Graach had retained their foliage after the one-night cold snap in early October. All of this year's wines remained on their fine lees at least through March, and the Schaefers pointed out that choices about which to bottle at what Pradikat level were usually made only from cask as the wines evolved, since with the exception of late pickings notably influenced by botrytis, the character of fruit was remarkably uniform. Another feature of 2009 that the Schaefers emphasized was high skin-to-juice ratios, something I certainly thought discernable even before they mentioned this. As a result their yields ended up being even lower than they had been anticipated on the basis of eyeballing and measuring the incoming volume of grapes. Importer: Terry Theise Estate Selections, imported by Michael Skurnik Wines, Inc., Syosset, NY; tel. (516) 677-9300