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

點擊次數：2895

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

Kuhling-Gillot 2010 年的 Niersteiner Olberg Riesling Grosses Gewachs 【散發著水仙和牡丹的麝香似的香氣，口感濃郁，幾乎掩蓋了果味的鮮美多汁，四散】的花香和煙熏、油滑的碎石頭風味都非常突出。【檸檬似的酸味和微弱的藥草刺激性氣息只是增強了相當尖厲的口感】，這是德國很多葡萄酒愛好者所喜歡的特點。

Kuhling-Gillot’s 2009 Niersteiner Olberg Riesling Grosses Gewachs (this winery now spells the site name with an Umlaut rather than “oe”) displays a surprisingly deep golden color for such a youthful wine, which somehow seems appropriate to its smoky, fusil aromatics, oily texture, and bitter shadings of peach kernel and citrus rind. A faintly musky aura such as one often encounters from this site adds interest. This certainly sticks to the gums, impinging not only piquantly but with a welcome sense of vibratory invigoration. I would want to keep careful tabs on it beyond the next 4-5 years lest the bitter and fusil elements here magnify. Like her husband Oliver Spanier (of Weingut Battenfeld-Spanier), Carolin Gillot – for more about whose estate see in particular my reports in issues 185 and 187 – seems disinclined to tolerates residual sugar in her wines. Whether or not it is for that reason that they elected not to bottle the 28 gram residual sugar successor to the superb Kuhling-Gillot 2008 Gewurztraminer feinherb, I do wish I’d had chance to satisfy my curiosity by sampling that wine from cask. (I missed out also on sampling this year’s Kuhling-Gillot Pinot Gris from bottle.)Imported by Domaine Select Wine Estates, New York, NY; tel. (212) 279-0799