Named for the brook that carves a gap in the Donnersberg range through which cool air routinely penetrates to their vineyards, Battenfeld-Spanier's 2009 Riesling trocken Eisbach reflects principally gentle, chalk-dominated slopes and represents their attempt to fill a marketing gap between the estate's 'regular' generic bottling and village-designated wines selling for twice that price. I find this sleek little 'ice brook' of Riesling decidedly frigid, not that it lacks stuffing (at 12.5% alcohol) but on account of its bright citricity, rather adamant minerality, and austere dryness. It's piquantly and pithily nutty as well as undeniably persistent, but I find the ostensibly lesser generic from its vintage more generous in primary fruit juiciness and altogether more enticing. Perhaps this will put out a more ample welcome mat in the next 2-3 years, but I would plan on drinking it within that period regardless. Oliver Spanier - for information about whose distinctive sites and methods consult especially my report in issue 185 - harvested until November 3, 2009, allowing almost an entire month for optimizing ripeness. Just as at their Kuhling-Gillot estate, the team of Spanier and his wife Carolin Gillot seek to avoid bottling non-trocken wines, instead blending away any lots that finish with more than 9 grams of residual sugar. Spanier is among the many German Riesling growers who - in his words - are "working in the direction of clarity, freshness, finesse and elegance of expression rather than extract or power" (for which he used the English word). But it's one thing to talk the talk and another to walk the walk - assuming that one is attracted by these stated goals - and in that respect, Spanier is not the only ambitious German grower I have encountered whose ostensibly lesser bottlings (from 2009, anyway) strike me as living up to his stated ideals better than do his Grosse Gewachse.Imported by Domaine Select Wine Estates, New York, NY; tel. (212) 279-0799
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