Kesselstatt’s 2007 Josephshofer Riesling Auslese Gold Capsule #3 was auctioned, and its description is likely to cause head-scratching. Following the practice with other Auslesen at this estate, the numeral 3 prominently displayed on the label is simply a nickname, used in other vintages as well to designate the Josefshofer auction Auslese. But there is also the Josephshofer Auslese nicknamed “#10” – served to me first, and, of course, ultimately less expensive than the auction cuvee – that is referred to by the estate as “l(fā)ong gold capsule.” This auction wine smells of white raisin, grapefruit, grilled pineapple, and caramelized peach; comes to the palate creamy and opulently ripe, but with uncanny buoyancy and an invigorating sense of citrus zest and fruit skin to help offset its sweetness and botrytisation; and finishes with sappy as well as honeyed cling, accompanied by notes of praline and brown spices. Surprisingly light-footed for a wine so viscous, expansive, and sweet, this needs a decade or more in the cellar but should reward 30 or more years aging. A protracted harvest is almost bound to be especially beneficial for an estate with such enormous and widely-scattered vine acreage as that of von Kesselstatt. The acidity in this year’s collection is almost uniformly ripe, and often noticeably low. As usual, a certain austerity accrues to a fair share of Kesslestatt’s many trocken Rieslings (wines from whose labels the last vestiges of Pradikat designations have now disappeared), but happily, alcoholic heat was scarcely a problem here this year. Interestingly, the Saar wines among these were generally especially successful regardless of style. Annegret Reh’s plan in the Kabinett segment, incidentally, is to eventually eliminate the redundancy of having both feinherb (successors to former halbtrocken) and unabashedly sweet bottlings from a single site, but instead work in the direction of merely discreet – i.e. feinherb – sweetness for most of the estate’s Kabinetts. In a sweet style, the Kesselstatt Kabinetts have consistently represented excellent values with ready market-availability, whereas few of the drier Kabinetts (and virtually none of the estate’s trocken Rieslings) seem to make it to the U.S.Various importers including: P. J. Valckenberg International, Tulsa, OK; tel (918) 622-0424.