2009 Hohenmorgen Trocken Edition G.C.

Intense aromatic impingement suggestive of corn mash, citrus rinds, and sage represent an accentuation of site-typical features in Burklin’s 2009 Deidesheimer Hohenmorgen Riesling trocken GC whose satiny texture, ripe apricot fruit, and deep nutty richness offer a fine sense of contrast on the palate to its persistent pungency and piquancy. Opulent and expansive yet at the same time vibratory in length, this harbors a host of mineral nuances which I expect will become more apparent over the course of the next ten or a dozen years, without there being much worry that an impression of austerity might set-in given the wine’s sheer stock of fruit and fat. Burklin-Wolf has fielded a 2009 collection of remarkably consistent excellence. Sales veteran Tom Benns – an extremely savvy and insightful taster who presented to me this year’s collection – offered a likely clue to that level of quality (albeit without claiming any scientific explanatory rigor) when he pointed to the roughly 80% reliance this year on spontaneous fermentation. “This was a bit of new ground for us,” Benns explained. “It sort of just happened, in part because we had a crop with absolutely no botrytis, great acidity, and perfectly ripe fruit.” It was still so warm here when the Riesling harvest began that refrigerated trucks were called in to guarantee that these qualities were preserved en route to the press house. While I continue to mourn for all of the wonderful non-trocken Rieslings with which cellarmaster Fritz Knorr and the team at Burklin (and their predecessors) once displayed such talent but which they nowadays essay only in rare instances of early and ideal botrytis, I lift my hat to the exceptionally well-balanced and absorbing results of their virtually single-minded devotion to Riesling trocken. (And by the way, theirs are seldom anywhere near the upper-limit of 9 grams residual sugar set for that category.) I cannot resist calling readers’ attention to the fact that the suggested retail prices for these wines have dropped since last year, rendering nearly the entire collection below the estate’s “G.C.” level collectively fine values. (And by contrast, you have to have faith in their ultimate extra measure of developmental potential to justify the price differential of those “G.C.”s.) Christopher Cannan Europvin Selections (various importers), Bordeaux; fax 001-33-5 57-87-43-22