2004 Dönnhoff Oberhäuser Brücke Riesling Eiswein

As soon as I smelled the 2004 Oberhauser Brucke Riesling Eiswein A.P. #24 and tried to wrap my tongue and mind around it, I came to two vivid realizations. First and foremost, it inhabits an entirely different world from the extraordinary #23. Second, if it merely succeeds (and it will) in making a fool of me for trying to describe it let alone give it a rating, I shall count myself lucky that my soul has been spared. This is nothing you could call “Eiswein Trockenbeerenauslese” – although in earlier times that is how it would have been labeled – because there is no dried fruit character in evidence. Normally if the starting point for Eiswein were berries so tiny, healthy and ripe as were present on this occasion, the frost could only add a modest increment of additional concentration. But here, frost seems to have catapulted the wine into an orbit beyond the reach of our web of words. What we have here, prosaically put, is the most intense imaginable concentration of fresh, jellied and candied fruits, citrus, and mineral salts. If tasting the #23 was like swallowing an electric eel, this is like getting hooked up to a generator. That is not, however, to suggest that the experience is jarring. “Harmony” and “colloquy” suggest themselves to Donnhoff as we both grope to describe the remarkably dynamic, whirling, dancing interplay of flavors. “Don’t ask me how cold it was,” he says. “All I did was check the thermometer once to see that it was cold enough, then I got out of bed. The day before, the whole family had said, ‘so, we’ll pick everything, it’s all so beautiful’ ‘Mmm ? I think we’ll just wait,’ said I. ‘It could be that tomorrow we can do it again.’” I doubt I shall taste another Riesling like this, nor one better. Importer: Terry Theise Estate Selections, imported by Michael Skurnik Wines, Inc., Syosset, NY; tel. (516) 677-9300