Like its Josephshofer counterpart, there are only around 80 liters of the Kesselstatt 2010 Scharzhofberger Riesling Trockenbeerenauslese and it was picked out meticulously through almost the entire period of harvest. Scents of toasted hazelnut, fresh radish, lemon rind, honey, and peach preserves prepare the way for a correspondingly diverse palate performance rich and viscous; nearly weightlessly buoyant; as well as sharp and practically electric. Where many a powerful nobly sweet 2010 comes off as unruly in its resemblance to Eiswein, here one has the impression of a great, ennobled T.B.A. to which Eiswein has been added as a super-charging agent. Pungent smokiness and brown spices, herbal extracts, and salivary gland-tugging salinity all add to the almost head-spinningly intense interactivity of this elixir’s profoundly protracted finish. This will probably leave one in a daze on any occasion over the next 50 years, though I suspect that the view from its peak will be yet more glorious for being more perspicuous. There is a superfluity of practically over-energized elements here that need to seek their most stable orbits.Annegret Reh and vineyard manager-cellarmaster Wolfgang Mertes have turned in a 2010 collection reduced in volume (unusually, I tasted it in its entirety) but of impressively consistent excellence, with welcome clarity and focus as well as relatively low-alcohol balance at its drier end. Here is one estate where a direct comparison is possible and the Saar and Ruwer generated more excitement than the Middle Mosel. “What really proved valuable this year,” notes Reh, “was de-leafing” to enhance ventilation, which manifestly didn’t handicap the wines in terms of ripeness. As is typically the case here, too, the wings were often cut off of the clusters, although given the tiny 2010 crop that wasn’t necessary in all parcels. Picking for the top dry wines took place within a fairly narrow window near the end of October – botrytis being carefully eliminated; skin contact being extended; and selected musts being double-salt de-acidified – and they were bottled in July. This geographically wide-ranging and terroir-blessed estate continues to chart a unique stylistic course, in particular with wines labeled “Kabinett” tending increasingly toward very discretely-integrated “hidden” sweetness that renders them extremely versatile at table but in striking contrast to most Mosel wines so-labeled, which tend toward extremely low alcohol and pronounced sweetness, not to mention in contrast with the majority of German Riesling as a whole, which remains fashionably legally trocken.Various importers including P. J. Valckenberg International, Tulsa, OK; tel. (918) 622-0424
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