Salty, smoked-meat notes on the nose of Gies-Duppel’s 2007 Birkweiler Mandelberg Grauer Burgunder Spatlese trocken lead to a creamy rich palate impression enfolding satisfying suggestions of ripe peach and toasted almond, but there is a trace of heat, bitterness, and drying in the finish (never mind only 13.5% alcohol). A bottle that had been opened 5 days – even creamier – proved that this has a certain sort of stamina, but I would still be inclined to drink it over the next couple of years..Volker Gies took over his family’s domaine in 1999, and is relentlessly and successfully pursuing quality and site-specificity while offering (at least, based on ex-cellar pricing) some of the finest values I have tasted in German wine over the past several years. Some potentially exciting new vineyard sites have recently been cleared for planting it is clear that, as impressive as these wines are, there will be much more excitement up ahead. Although it had been in the bottle 18 months when I tasted it last September, Duppel’s well-concentrated but rather awkwardly woody, rough 2005 Pinot Noir represented at that time his current offering. But red wines represented the only disappointment of any sort at this address, and even here there is promise. Like his more famous neighbors Rebholz and Wehrheim, Giess renders a range of site-specific Pinot Blancs.Importer: Tartaglione Fine Wines, San Francisco, CA; tel. (415) 216-3356