For thoughts on Chateau Ste Michelle’s uniqueness and recent evolution, consult my extensive April, 2013 text designed to introduce recent tasting notes. With eye-opening and nostril-flaring intensity of high-toned fruit distillates, candied citrus rinds, and shellac, the Ste Michelle-Loosen 2008 Riesling Eroica Single Berry Select – picked entirely in Horse Heaven Vineyard; pressed by the “red team” there; then rushed over the Cascades to Woodinville for fermentation – makes at the very least a striking and complex impression. Hugely viscous, it engenders a palate impression of honey, brown sugar, apricot preserves and orange liqueur, with bitter notes from citrus rind and fruit pit rather than any bright sense of vibrant or mouthwatering acidity serving for what push-back there is to its nearly 400 grams (!) residual sugar. An aura of white raisin joins jam, honey, and liqueur in a finish whose extension consists largely of sheer sweetness. I could easily imagine this “l(fā)iving” for a decade or more, but I suspect that it would take much longer than that for its sweetness to tone-down and that the limitations it carries will not be ameliorated with time. It’s hard not to call a wine that’s outsized in so many respects impressive, but the best of Loosen’s “regular” Eroica Rieslings are better-balanced; far more enticing of the (or at least, my) next sip; and further along the road to world class than this.
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