High-toned evocations of pear, plum, and caraway seed (Kummel) distillates on the nose of Kerpen’s 2010 Wehlener Sonnenuhr Riesling Trockenbeerenauslese migrate to a viscous, honeyed palate accompanied by blazingly tart lemon. The impression for now is decidedly bifurcated, although sheer concentration and length this certainly has in spades ... and without the drawbacks (if perhaps also without quite the aberrant fascination) of the corresponding B.A. I imagine it is almost bound to live for decades, and perhaps if one tastes again in a few years it will be possible to get a better sense of what it might become. Martin Kerpen practiced must-de-acidification on most of his 2010s, and some additional acid-adjustment to certain wines as well, especially (but by no means exclusively) those that fell into the trocken sector. “People went on about the eventual advantageous effects of tartrate precipitation,” says Kerpen, “but I don’t think they took into account just how unusually little tartaric acid there was this year. I had a T.B.A. analyzed that had 16 grams of total acidity and it turned out to have only 3 grams of tartaric!” His example may be extreme, but it reminds one of the general rule that seems to hold in 2010 by which the more botrytized the fruit the higher the acidity stubbornly remained; and it’s possible that the background levels of botrytis in Kerpen’s 2010 grapes as a whole – a background impossible to avoid noticing as one tastes through this collection – also made for relatively high ratios of malic to tartaric acid even by vintage standards. Kerpen suspected that location played a role, and that growers in Urzig had not only lower total acidities but lower ratios of malic than those in Wehlen and Graach. I had to disabuse him of that belief based from my experience! He insists that his latest wines all need time to show their true worth; but I would caution that while there is much that’s fascinating and delicious in this collection, there is even a bit more of a question mark hanging over the future evolution of certain of these wines than over that of typical 2010s from top-notch growers. Importer: Terry Theise Estate Selections, imported by Michael Skurnik Wines, Inc., Syosset, NY; tel. (516) 677-9300