1998 Domaine Zind-Humbrecht Riesling Rangen Clos St. Urbain Grand Cru

"The Rangen enjoyed extremely favorable conditions for the development of noble rot in the middle of October," reported Olivier Humbrecht. The botrytized grapes for his intensely amber colored 1998 Riesling Clos Saint-Urbain Rangen de Thann were picked in mid-October at 103° Oechsle or 14.3% potential alcohol. The wine fermented very slowly and wasn't bottled before March 2001. Yields were low at 21.5 hectoliters per hectare. Even if this Rangen wasn't labeled as Vendange Tardive, it does have extremely strong botrytis influence in color, flavors and taste. The wine opens with a rich and intensely aromatic yet also elegant and spicy bouquet with dried and stewed yellow stone fruit, honey, balm and caramel aromas intermingled with porcini notes and a precise and rather coolish terroir tone of flint stones and herbs. The 1998 is rich but also refined and elegant on the palate and not overly sweet. In fact, it is a spicy as much as fruity but, most of all, intense and complex Rangen that is elegant and also terroir-driven, structured by fine and lively acidity and stimulating salinity. This is a superb, gastronomic 1998 that should go perfectly well with fatty and spicy dishes that ask for a certain sweetness but also power, structure and mineral substance. The 1998 Rangen was bottled with 13.99% alcohol and 34 grams per liter of residual sugar. Natural cork. Tasted in March 2024.