Vanilla, marzipan, and candied orange rind make for a quite confectionary aromatic and palate display from Gunderloch’s 2011 Nackenheimer Rothenberg Riesling Spatlese, which boasts an almost custardy richness allied to subtle oiliness, and finishes with considerable but appealing sweetness, alkaline, ginger and smoky black tea nuances offering a welcome (indeed, in a wine that displays such softness, a vital) sense of cut and counterpoint. This captures a sense of buoyancy that couldn’t be achieved in the vintage’s “Jean-Baptiste” Kabinett, and ought to prove delightful for well more than a decade. I kept company in their tasting room a precious share of Fritz and Agnes Hasselbach’s 2011 harvest in the form of two small stainless tanks and a tiny glass balloon whose contents will probably eventually inform both a T.B.A. (incorporating the latter lot, picked-out near the beginning of harvest) and a B.A. (which would incorporate some of the rest, harvested – as so often at this address – very late). There is no gold capsule Auslese this year, and Fritz Hasselbach’s explanation – “the quality of our Auslese has gotten better and the main harvest so selective” as to obviate two tiers – suggests that this may be a policy choice going forward. The harvest here began already in the third week of September and continued through October. The resultant wines are as a group noticeably low in acid but manage to adapt themselves and display distinctive virtues. Most of the Gunderloch 2011s were bottled in April, the exception being their Grosse Gewachse, in mid-summer.Importer: Rudi Wiest, Cellars International, Carlsbad, CA; tel. (800) 596- 9463

Richer than Frühlingsplätzschen, this is another sensational Spätlese from the famous Rote Erde (red soil) slope facing the Rhine just north of Nierstein.