Dr. Bürklin-Wolf Riesling Gaisböhl G. C. VDP.Großes Gewächs 2017

There is real focus to the grapefruit aromas here with wild herbs, spices, preserved lemon and pickled lime. The concentration here is impressive, as is the layered and stony texture of the palate with a juicy and very smooth feel, deeply pithy grapefruit and some spice to close. Dry finish. From biodynamically grown grapes. Try from 2023.

This pithily, pungently concentrated expression of its site features walnut oil, coriander seed and piquantly pit-tinged peach, but it exhibits a plush, subtly creamy texture that seductively envelops the aforementioned elements. The wine’s alliance of invigorating pungency and piquancy with enveloping textural allure is not its only remarkable feature. It finishes with a sense of transparency to stony and herbal nuances that is uncanny for a wine of such palpable density and plushness. This will be fascinating stuff to follow once bottled. (The corresponding 2016, about which I waxed so enthusiastic in my last report, ended up not being bottled until December 2017; and nine months later its shimmering performance lives up to the top end of my billing.)

The 2017 Gaisböhl G.C. is deep, ripe, fresh and complex on the citrus-scented yet round and concentrated nose. Powerful and intense on the palate, this is a mineral, salty, tight and linear Riesling with volume, structure and length. Still closed but with great talents. Tasted in Wachenheim in December 2019.