Selbach-Oster Zeltinger Himmelreich Riesling Eiswein, Mosel, Germany

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Picked on the 5th of December, the 2016 Zeltinger Himmelreich Riesling Eiswein (AP 14 17) has a very clear and concentrated bouquet of pineapples and weathered slate. Sweet yet piquant and elegant on the palate, this is a highly finessed and salty-piquant picture-book ice wine with lingering salinity and grip. This is super precise and perfectly balanced. Tasted February 2018.

Tasted before bottling, Selbach-Oster’s “one-star” 2010 Zeltinger Himmelreich Riesling Eiswein represents a later picking from the same parcel as the “regular” Himmelreich Eiswein. If essaying that wine was audacious, I suppose leaving fruit behind for later was that much more so. But whereas the audacity of the earlier picking is aptly reflected in the raucous intensity and ungrounded electricity it displays as wine, this second Eiswein is more soundly impressive. Its fermentation had just been arrested and the wine bottled several days before I tasted it in mid-September. Imagine the characteristics of lemon meringue pie glazed with apricot preserves ... then raise that impression to the second power. Now add salt, stone, spice, and pungent herbs and zest as seemingly seen through a clear torrent of frigid, brightly citric fruit. The juxtaposition of custard-like density with flashes of acidity here is uncanny and the high-voltage finish practically unremitting. This show could be worth sticking around for, though I would keep track of the exits. “From the look of the grapes in early October,” relates Johannes Selbach, “it seemed we would have green, hard-edged wines this year. But the saving grace” – that three-word description spoken in English, incidentally – “was that if you waited, the weather cooperated just long enough, and eventually real ripeness and interesting aromas developed. At that point, we picked in a hurry, finishing in early November.” Reacting to the high-acid nature of 2010 material – much of it double-salt de-acidified as must – Selbach finished nearly all of his wines with significant residual sugar, and it was literally half by accident that any of these ended up with a profile that could be called “Kabinett.” Otherwise, this is a vintage dominated by sweet Spatlese and Auslese to an extent that in its relative stylistic homogeneity compels me to recollect my earliest experiences with this estate and the dominance in certain mid-’1980s vintages of off-dry Kabinett and Q.b.A.! The high ripeness and botrytized complexity that characterize this collection is reflected in the fact that the estate’s three by now familiar and no longer Pradikat-designated, block-picked parcel bottlings were served me after I had tasted the wines labeled “Auslese,” and there was not the least awkwardness to the transition (although for now this vintage looks to have rewarded selection at least marginally over block picking). “The two most unusual botrytis vintages of my career,” remarks Selbach, “have been 2006 and now 2010. But whereas the 2006s were opulent, 2010 delivered sleek, thoroughbred racehorses built for the long haul.” Hang on for a quite possibly wild ride, then, because as impressive as these wines are, just as Selbach intimated, they are highly unusual and their future track record correspondingly inscrutable. If 2009 was clearly a year for Schlossberg to shine, 2010 is a year of more predictable favoritism toward Zeltinger Sonnenuhr.Importers: There are a few regional importers of certain Selbach wines, but the majority (and those whose prices are noted above) are Terry Theise Estate Selections, imported by Michael Skurnik Wines, Inc., Syosset, NY; tel. (516) 677-9300

Given the travails of the vintage and the ruthlessness with which botrytis had to be removed to keep grapes hanging reasonably healthy until the first deep frost of December, I asked Johannes Selbach why he bothered to attempt a 2010 Zeltinger Himmelreich Riesling Eiswein. His answer was unambiguous, even if I must resort to neologism to translate it: “ ‘sportly’ competitiveness.” Singed grilled pineapple and lemon rind tweak the nose, then practically electrocute the palate with their bright impact, leaving behind charred detritus and a shivering impression of citricity. There is a candied green apple sense of bifurcation about this audacious exercise in winter sport. It makes a strong impression, whether or not you’re impressed. Intriguingly, the actual acidity here is no higher than in several of this collection’s non-Eis wines, but the effect is both strikingly bracing and metaphorically chilly. Socking some away represents, I suspect, even more of a risk than is usual for its genre and I won’t try to prognosticate. “From the look of the grapes in early October,” relates Johannes Selbach, “it seemed we would have green, hard-edged wines this year. But the saving grace” – that three-word description spoken in English, incidentally – “was that if you waited, the weather cooperated just long enough, and eventually real ripeness and interesting aromas developed. At that point, we picked in a hurry, finishing in early November.” Reacting to the high-acid nature of 2010 material – much of it double-salt de-acidified as must – Selbach finished nearly all of his wines with significant residual sugar, and it was literally half by accident that any of these ended up with a profile that could be called “Kabinett.” Otherwise, this is a vintage dominated by sweet Spatlese and Auslese to an extent that in its relative stylistic homogeneity compels me to recollect my earliest experiences with this estate and the dominance in certain mid-’1980s vintages of off-dry Kabinett and Q.b.A.! The high ripeness and botrytized complexity that characterize this collection is reflected in the fact that the estate’s three by now familiar and no longer Pradikat-designated, block-picked parcel bottlings were served me after I had tasted the wines labeled “Auslese,” and there was not the least awkwardness to the transition (although for now this vintage looks to have rewarded selection at least marginally over block picking). “The two most unusual botrytis vintages of my career,” remarks Selbach, “have been 2006 and now 2010. But whereas the 2006s were opulent, 2010 delivered sleek, thoroughbred racehorses built for the long haul.” Hang on for a quite possibly wild ride, then, because as impressive as these wines are, just as Selbach intimated, they are highly unusual and their future track record correspondingly inscrutable. If 2009 was clearly a year for Schlossberg to shine, 2010 is a year of more predictable favoritism toward Zeltinger Sonnenuhr. Importers: There are a few regional importers of certain Selbach wines, but the majority (and those whose prices are noted above) are Terry Theise Estate Selections, imported by Michael Skurnik Wines, Inc., Syosset, NY; tel. (516) 677-9300

Harvested – like most of its ilk – on December 30, the Selbach-Oster 2008 Zeltinger Himmelreich Eiswein smells enticingly yet sharply of lime meringue and radish; combines confectionary sweetness as well as chiffon-like delicacy of quince jelly glazed lime meringue on the palate; and preserves invigorating tension, refreshment, and infectiously lip-smacking cling in the finish. Hints of smoke and lemon zest add invigoration in a finish that points toward thick, healthy grape skins concentrate by frost and extracted by slow, light pressing. This should be interesting to follow from bottle and has the sort of purity that might see it through a couple of decades of bottle evolution, perhaps even longer. Johannes Selbach responded to the high energy and acidity of the 2008 vintage by giving most of the wines extra fine-lees contact and later-than-usual bottling. As a champion of (in his words) “genuine Kabinett” and “drinking wine, not trophy wine” and a resister against the encroachment of high must weights and residual sugar to which the weather in most recent vintages has left even him susceptible, Selbach was predictably overjoyed both with the refreshment, delicacy, and infectious drinkability made possible by vintage 2008, and with its preponderance of Kabinett and Spatlese. Several single-parcel, block-picked (i.e. the whole crop at once), vineyard-designated wines were essayed (that from the Anrecht – within Zeltinger Himmelreich – being new this year) although at Spatlese rather than, as usually in the past, Auslese Pradikat level. In fact, it remains Selbach’s intention to very soon remove the already small-print reference to Pradikat from these special bottlings, whose focus is intended to be entirely on reflecting terroir and vintage. (Ironically, though, the reference to the sites themselves remain in very small print, because the authorities are testy about the use of geographical designations other than those of the official Einzellagen singled-out – or, to put it more appropriately, assembled – in 1971.) There are a few regional importers of certain Selbach wines, but the majority (and those whose prices are noted above) are Terry Theise Estate Selections, imported by Michael Skurnik Wines, Inc., Syosset, NY; tel. (516) 677-9300

A light-weight version, intensely sweet and structured, with a sweet-tart profile, preserved citrus and dried apricot. Good concentration. Excellent harmony and balance. Fine length. Best from 2012 through 2030.??–BS??Region: Germany / Mosel-Saar-Ruwer Select to Add