2010 Piesporter Goldtropchen Spatlese

Site-typical pineapple, grapefruit, and black currant scent and exuberantly inform the buoyant, juicy, yet at the same time subtly creamy palate of Grans-Fassian’s 2010 Piesporter Goldtropfchen Riesling Spatlese, leading to a long and quite exhilarating finish, even if one lacking the mineral dimension, complexity, or interactivity of the corresponding Apotheke. As with other residually sweet wines in this collection, the precise level of sugar seems to have been very ideally judged for optimum support and no superficiality. Gerhard Grans relates that the oenological powers that be in Germany gave largely bad advice in 2010, which he claims included early recommendations to let fermentation take its high-acid course and “fine tune” wines thereafter as deemed necessary; whereas he insisted as harvest approached that only a significant degree of double-salt must de-acidification could bring the majority of 2010s into a range where they would end up being pleasurable and expressive. (Later, he also encouraged tartrate precipitation.) Picking at Grans-Fassian continued into mid-November and the last-harvested fruit was not de-acidified. “Of course,” notes Grans, “with every day that we waited we lost even more volume and we were already facing a very small crop. But there was no alternative in an attempt to achieve quality. Only the grapes for our base quality wines were picked earlier and with compromise in mind, so that we at least had a halfway acceptable volume that that price level. Especially here in Leiwen there was a high ratio of still healthy, green-gold berries in November.” Importers include Old Vine Imports, Petaluma, CA; (707) 769-1745