The 2007 Ruppertsberger Gaisbohl Riesling Beerenauslese smells and tastes of brown spice- and lemon-laced peach preserves, with its high acidity informing a bright, tart, buoyant, nearly electric finish. Subtle fruit skin chew lends a satisfying tactile presence to this already viscous elixir and a note of peach kernel a decided piquancy. This should become even more impressive as its acids are integrated over time, and I am confident it will be worth holding for at least a quarter century. The biodynamic Burklin-Wolf team, headed by owner Bettina Burklin and cellar master Fritz Knorr continues to excel, and few if any German estates have so successfully fulfilled or cashed in on the ideals that so many of them shared, of focusing on dry wine and on terroir distinctions. The fulfillment lies in consistently well-balanced legally trocken wines and dramatically distinctive single-site bottlings (with an internal ranking of quality rather than use of Pradikat terms or designations as “Grosses Gewachs”). As for cashing in, the prices the top crus here have been able to maintain speak for themselves, although the high quality of Burklin-Wolf’s entire line renders many of these wines excellent values. (I missed out on this year’s Altenburg or Langenmorgen, incidentally, because not a single bottle could be found left behind at the winery last September.) The range of wines readily available in the U.S. is expected to expand as part of a new import and marketing arrangement. Outbreaks of botrytis in certain sites already in late September caused some alarm, but with startling rapidity it dried into nobility so that the estate ended up with a clutch of extraordinary sweet wines featuring almost freakishly high acidity, all of them picked before any others of this year’s Rieslings.Christopher Cannan Europvin Selections (various importers), Bordeaux; fax 001-33-5 57-87-43-22
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