Kerpen Riesling Auslese Wehlener Sonnenuhr 1 star

點擊次數(shù)：2648

Picked later than the corresponding “no-star” Auslese and with a bit more noble rot (though late harvest and ennoblement by no means always go hand in hand), the Kerpen 2011 Wehlener Sonnenuhr Riesling Auslese one star leads with honeysuckle, heliotrope, rowan and lily perfume allied to ethereal, honeyed hints of sheer botrytis, all of which liquefy on a buoyant, creamily-textured, subtly oil-slicked palate that nonetheless preserves juicy apple-y freshness and offers delicately incisive counterpoint via hints of apple skin and pip. The marriage of opulent richness with finishing energy is distinctive and seductive. Plan to follow this beauty through at least 2035. Martin Kerpen has been on an impressive roll of late, and his 2011 collection – whose four highest must-weight wines, granted, I couldn’t taste last year as they were so slow in fermenting – scores striking successes across a wide spectrum of residual sugar. (I also failed to taste at least one residually sweet Graacher that had evidently disappeared from Kerpen’s cellars last September and I could not subsequently track down.) While Kerpen has long been notably successful in rendering legally dry Riesling from his famous Wehlen and Graach sites, the extreme acidity of 2010 militated against harmony in this sector of his portfolio; whereas, from 2011 come some of his most impressive-ever results. Small wonder, then, that in this vintage Kerpen’s volume of trocken Riesling overtook that of non-trocken. As with many of the best Mosel collections from this vintage, the wines here are analytically low-acid yet one seldom feels a want of freshness or vivacity. Importer: Terry Theise Estate Selections, imported by Michael Skurnik Wines, Inc., Syosset, NY; tel. (516) 677-9300

A Kerpen “one-star” 2010 Wehlener Sonnenuhr Riesling Auslese effusively emits perfume of heliotrope, peony, lemon blossom along with scents of sea breeze, fresh pear, lemon, and grapefruit. Luscious and refreshing but at the same time alluringly creamy, this palate-saturating exercise in ennobled Wehlener Sonnenuhr virtues finishes with an exuberant burst of fresh citrus as well as saliva-inducing salinity to accompany its pear nectar and musk- and vanilla-tinged liquid perfume. The infectious juiciness and fresh-fruitedness here are all the more remarkable in view of the overwhelming presence of botrytis that Kerpen describes in the grapes and its questionable effect in a number of other instances in the present collection. Expect this to reward two decades of attention. Martin Kerpen practiced must-de-acidification on most of his 2010s, and some additional acid-adjustment to certain wines as well, especially (but by no means exclusively) those that fell into the trocken sector. “People went on about the eventual advantageous effects of tartrate precipitation,” says Kerpen, “but I don’t think they took into account just how unusually little tartaric acid there was this year. I had a T.B.A. analyzed that had 16 grams of total acidity and it turned out to have only 3 grams of tartaric!” His example may be extreme, but it reminds one of the general rule that seems to hold in 2010 by which the more botrytized the fruit the higher the acidity stubbornly remained; and it’s possible that the background levels of botrytis in Kerpen’s 2010 grapes as a whole – a background impossible to avoid noticing as one tastes through this collection – also made for relatively high ratios of malic to tartaric acid even by vintage standards. Kerpen suspected that location played a role, and that growers in Urzig had not only lower total acidities but lower ratios of malic than those in Wehlen and Graach. I had to disabuse him of that belief based from my experience! He insists that his latest wines all need time to show their true worth; but I would caution that while there is much that’s fascinating and delicious in this collection, there is even a bit more of a question mark hanging over the future evolution of certain of these wines than over that of typical 2010s from top-notch growers. Importer: Terry Theise Estate Selections, imported by Michael Skurnik Wines, Inc., Syosset, NY; tel. (516) 677-9300

The Kerpen 2009 Wehlener Sonnenuhr Riesling Auslese* (there’s no corresponding “no star”) displays high-toned aromatic melange of almost over-ripe apple and pear with decadent lily flower and herbal distillates; a soft, caressing palate impression; and rather confectionary, caramel and vanilla icing-inflected finishing sweetness. Look for this to hold up well for three decades and – at the latest, after its sense of sweetness begins to back-off a bit – to reveal further nuance. Martin Kerpen’s 2009 collection Rieslings possess uncommon brightness for their vintage, and he continues to excel across a blessedly broad stylistic range, from legally trocken through nobly sweet – and, more importantly, with plenty of successful stops in-between. It’s worth noting that Kerpen is especially keen on the quality of his nobly sweet 2009s – wines that are certainly close to off-the-charts on paper – although as readers can see, my praise for them is more selective. Importer: Terry Theise Estate Selections, imported by Michael Skurnik Wines, Inc., Syosset, NY; tel. (516) 677-9300

The Kerpen “one-star” 2006 Wehlener Sonnenuhr Riesling Auslese smells decadently of faded lilies, and golden delicious apples drizzled with honey and caramel. Yet for all of the sweetness and soft ripeness that description suggests, and for all of this wine’s creamy texture, a combination of spicy botrytis pungency and citrus zest helps generate a sense of invigoration and grip in the finish. While coming up shy of the refinement exhibited by the best wines in this year’s Kerpen collection, I suspect that this will reward at least 20 years’ cellaring. While Martin Kerpen’s extensive array of dry Rieslings from 2007 is not on quite the superlative order of their immediate predecessors, his residually sweet wines are again highly successful. Importer: Terry Theise Estate Selections, imported by Michael Skurnik Wines, Inc., Syosset, NY; tel (516) 677-9300

The Kerpen “one-star” 2006 Wehlener Sonnenuhr Riesling Auslese is dominated by salted caramel with a (for a rich Auslese) strikingly distinct note of wet stone as well. The malted, caramelized depth here is reminiscent of the corresponding Domprobst, but today, at least, this misses the fascination or elegance of that wine. There is abundant energy by way of ripe acidity, and I expect to witness this Wehlener displaying further facets even over the relatively short run. It’s almost as though this wine is suffering slightly from “middle child syndrome.” Certainly though, it is impressively long and concentrated, and one could return to it anytime over the next 20 years. Martin Kerpen and his vines had a hard act to follow after their successes in 2005 but were more than up to the task, confirming the hypothesis that these always excellent wines have crossed a new quality threshold. Still, the last place I would have imagined 2006s keeping pace was in the range of trocken. Importer: Terry Theise Estate Selections, imported by Michael Skurnik Wines, Inc., Syosset, NY; tel. (516) 677-9300