Winter pear, water chestnut, and diverse green herbs scent and with crunch and pungency inform the palate of Battenfeld-Spanier’s 2010 Gruner Sylvaner trocken, an alkaline mineral sense hanging over the wine’s entire, generously juicy performance. As in past instances, this displays lift, polish, transparency, and refreshment such as one seldom derives from Silvaner (or from Sylvaner - yes, this estate spells the cepage name as the French do, with “y”), virtues that seem only to have been accentuated by 2010 vintage character that can render Sylvaner quite Riesling-like. The finish here clings with a lovely, persistent colloquy of fruit, herb, and mineral. Enjoy this inevitably versatile wine over the next 3-5 years, and quite possibly beyond. This year’s Battenfeld-Spanier collection – which, in Oliver Spanier’s unavoidable absence, I tasted with his father-in-law Roland Gillot – proved on the whole far more generous in vinous personality than that of nuptial partner-estate Kuhling-Gillot. And while the higher-alcohol and more aggressive phenolics in this estate’s Grosses Gewachs bottlings had in the past led me to sometimes prefer their lighter, more elegant and refreshing, if ostensibly lesser, “village” cuvees, in 2010 the crus were neither alcoholically-freighted nor – with one exception – overly astringent. (Incidentally, I missed tasting this year’s generic Battenfeld-Spanier Riesling.)Imported by Domaine Select Wine Estates, New York, NY; tel. (212) 279-0799