Kuhling-Gillot Niersteiner Olberg Riesling Grosses Gewachs Trocken, Rheinhessen, Germany

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When I dream of Olberg, Kuhling-Gillot’s 2011 Niersteiner Olberg Riesling Grosses Gewachs is how I imagine the vinous fruits of this great site tasting. “After six vintages of working with these vines,” in the Ur-Olberg, opines Gillot, “I think that only now are they beginning to show their potential and their mineral character.” Hints of bacon, marrow and musky, smoky black tea, bittersweet iris and narcissus perfume intriguingly and alluringly augment tangerine and ripe peach on the nose and silken, lusciously-juicy palate. A mouthwateringly savory impression of veal stock mingled with the fruit puts me in mind of a red Burgundy. This persistent, subtle performance should be worth following for at least a dozen years, and indeed this is also the sort of wine I imagine potentially recapitulating at least a semblance of the talent that great dry Nierstein Rieslings of half a century and more ago displayed of remaining expressive for decades. But we Riesling lovers will have to revisit 12-15 years from now a wine like this or like Keller’s inaugural Nierstein releases if we want to be in a position to intelligently prognosticate about their more distant futures. Carolin Gillot has expanded her acreage in Nierstein, and given what seems to be a dearth of growers from that village who are really on top of their game (Strub very much excepted), Riesling lovers must be grateful that some of Germany’s elite vintners who are based nearby (or, in Keller’s case, not all that nearby) have been taking custody of vineyards on the famous Red Slope, where increasingly many of the traditional landholders have in recent years sold their estates and small growers have shown themselves willing to lease after witnessing the meticulous work of a Gillot with neighboring vines. (Such willingness cannot, sadly, be presumed in the world of European wine. On the contrary, it seems more common for small landholders to resist leasing to outsiders out of misplaced communal pride.) This year’s Gillot Grosse Gewachse finished analytically extremely dry, and remained on their full lees until three days before June bottling. The result is an enhancement of fullness and stuffing, though happily at around 13.5% alcohol they evince no significant heat. (Why Gillot neglected to show me her Nackenheimer Rothenberg Grosses Gewachs, though, I can’t explain, and am remiss for having not redressed that omission.)Imported by Domaine Select Wine Estates, New York, NY; tel. (212) 279-0799