2018 Haardter Herzog Rieslaner Trockenbeerenauslese

Corresponding to the most desiccated (yet still virtually botrytis-free) berries picked out from the material that otherwise became this year’s Beerenauslese, here we have one of those phenomenally concentrated Müller-Catoir essays in Rieslaner’s unique dessert wine potential. Take the pear drops, honey and vanilla cream of the corresponding B.A. in all their aromatic intensity and glossy, glowing richness, and add almost buttery textural creaminess and enhanced viscosity set against a blazingly bright and invigorating evocation of fresh pineapple, clementine and lemon. The tension is, to say the least, productive...yet almost unbearable as you work the wine around in your mouth. Any sense of caramelization – such as was prominent in the corresponding Auslese – has been left behind (though perhaps some decades from now it will emerge). Smoky black tea and citrus peels lend piquant counterpoint to a mouth-shakingly vibrant, preternaturally persistent finish. The qualitative curve has in my long experience never before been this steep from Rieslaner Auslese to TBA. “If you could have seen how dramatically the grapes differed for each of them,” noted Franzen, “then this wouldn’t surprise you.”