Bott’s 2009 Gewurztraminer Cuvee Jules – one of two cuvees into which he declassified fruit from top sites – is scented with pea tendrils, lily-of-the-valley, rose, musk melon, and Persian melon, all of which reprise on a gently, subtly creamy palate. The liquidly floral sense is especially appealing and lasts into a sustained, succulent, soothing, subtly sweet finish, tinged with brown spices and saliva-inducing salinity. This should charm for at least the next 2-3 years, and quite possibly longer. “For me it was not a classic year for V.T. or S.G.N.,” says Jean-Christophe Bott of 2009. “There was very little botrytis, and when we started picking it was with the aim to make the best possible normal range. I found most of the Gewurztraminer very aromatic and fruity, but soft and lacking the depth of their sites; too much on the varietal side, so I preferred to mostly declassify, and also because in 2008 we had a great vintage whose wines really taste of their sites.” My judgment on 2008 is qualified. Detached tartness and decidedly fungal overtones suggest that in some instances fruit had to be harvested lest it succumb to botrytis. A measure of that fungal advance is that the nobly sweet wines in the present collection are enormously high in sugar and quite strongly marked by botrytis, yet represent the product of picking entire blocks rather than bunch-selection.Various importers, including Beaune Imports, Berkeley, CA; tel. (510) 559 1040 and Winebow, Montvale, NJ; tel. (201) 445-0620